


Delicate

by ohleahmarie



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, Bucky Barnes Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America Big Bang 2019 | cabigbang, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Coming Out, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Kidnapping, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nurse Bucky Barnes, Oblivious Bucky Barnes, POV Bucky Barnes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shrunkyclunks, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 17:18:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 45,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21201275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohleahmarie/pseuds/ohleahmarie
Summary: Bucky Barnes lives a totally normal life, despite having a metal arm.  He gets up, he goes to work at the hospital, he comes home, he goes to therapy for his PTSD, he tries to forget the war and the Battle of New York.  All-in-all, pretty ordinary.That is, until he finds Captain America with a bullet hole in his side slumped against a shelf in a supply closet.It turns out that Steve Rogers is a wanted fugitive after the events of Civil War, and Bucky offers his Brooklyn apartment as a place to lay low.  Their lives are quiet for a time, until another attack brings Captain America (and the other Avengers) out of hiding and they decide to take down Hydra, who have infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and the US government.





	1. ...Ready For It?

**Author's Note:**

> I am so excited to finally post this labor of love that I've been working on for the past six months. It's my first Cap Bing Bang entry, and I thought I'd never finish it, but we're finally here!
> 
> Please heed the tags. I will indicate specific content warnings for chapters that include potentially triggering scenes, but please be safe and kind to yourself and don't read any further if any of the tags could cause you harm.
> 
> I want to say thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for the beautiful artwork by [winter_sergeant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_sergeant). I've never seen my words illustrated, and I couldn't be happier that you took the time to make one of my dreams come true. I'm so thankful that you chose to work with me. This has been such an amazing experience.
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH as well to my beta, [fancyh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fancyh), without whom you'd see many more typos and weird wording. Thank you for being so patient with me and for taking the time to read everything closely. Any remaining mistakes or typos are my own and do not reflect the care with which my wonderful beta edited my work!
> 
> With all of that being said... let's get to it! Hope you enjoy!

It’s not that Bucky Barnes is a loner. He genuinely enjoys the company of a select few: his sister, Becca, some of his coworkers, and his small group of friends, who he really does see sometimes. Occasionally. Once a month.

So fine, maybe he’s a _bit _of a loner, but he’s not really alone _that _often. It’s hard to be alone working in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, and working day shift doesn’t allow Bucky the quiet he craves, but he lives alone and can spend his off days hiding under his blankets and not getting out of bed except to use the bathroom and open the door for the delivery guy.

Bucky sticks to his routines, at his therapist’s behest—though if his therapist knew he sometimes spends a full twenty-four hours in bed, she’d probably be concerned—but also because he doesn’t _like_ to stray from his routines. The last time he’d done that, he’d lost an arm. Sure, the metal prosthetic provided to him by the Stark Relief Fund works _beautifully_, maybe even better than a real arm does, but still…the trauma that had come with the whole ordeal’s not pretty, so. He sticks to his routines.

Which is why, after he’s clocked out at 7:00 PM and is making his way out of the hospital, he’s loathe to check out the sounds emanating from a supply room, tucked at the end of a unit that’s empty because it’s under construction. Bucky likes to take this way out, to walk down corridors where he doesn’t have to see a lot of people, because, again—_bit _of a loner. Plus, he’s been on his feet for twelve hours, his abdomen and arms aching from the hour-and-a-half-long code blue on the unit. He’s tired, and he’s taking the relatively people-free way out of the hospital, which requires him to thread through the empty unit, and that’s when he hears some ruffling and muffled cursing coming from the closet, the code to which someone seems to have bypassed by ripping the whole steel handle off the door.

His curiosity outweighs caution, and he pushes open the door.

What he finds is so bizarre that at first he’s pretty sure he’s hallucinating.

A man is slumped against one of the metal shelving units, tearing a suture kit open with his teeth. Bucky notices that there’s a pool of blood that’s soaked through his uniform on his right flank, and he’s determinedly not using his left arm, which he has pinned to his body like there’s an invisible sling there, and, honestly, the guy probably needs one. There’s a mean gash across his cheekbone and his dark blonde hair is slicked back with sweat. 

But even with the beard, even in a suit that’s dark blue and, sure, maybe a little more inconspicuous than the one with red and white stripes, Bucky still recognizes him immediately. It’s Captain _fucking _America.

“You’re Captain fucking America,” Bucky says out loud because apparently his brain-to-mouth filter is just as damaged as the guy in front of him bleeding on the scuffed linoleum. Sure enough, Captain fucking America looks up, startled, and tries to lurch up out of his sitting position, but Bucky’s already holding up both hands in the universal gesture of surrender. What else do you do when you’re faced with a bleeding Captain America who’s broken into a supply room at a hospital in Brooklyn on a random Wednesday in April?

“Please don’t—” Captain America says as he lets himself fall back against the shelf again, “—call anyone, or scream or…anything.” He observes Bucky momentarily, eyes skating over his metal arm, which is quietly recalibrating with his movements, and Bucky notices that he doesn’t seem to register it as bizarre in any way. Captain America turns his attention back to the task at hand, digging the tips of his fingers, which his brown leather gloves leave free, into the waistband of his pants and pulling up the top half of his suit to reveal a small, penetrative wound in his side.

“No, sure, I won’t,” Bucky answers quickly, gulping, trying hard to regain control of his motor movement when his entire brain is short-circuiting at the sudden flash of hard abdominal muscles rippling as the man breathes. Captain America clearly needs help, his left hand fairly useless, and Bucky moves forward without conscious thought, setting his cross-body bag down on the ground and kneeling beside the bleeding superhero. The situation calls for level-headedness, which Bucky sometimes has in spades. The nurse inside must take over, because suddenly he’s speaking again. “Let me help you,” he says, partly because he doesn’t want to watch Captain America fiddle with needle drivers and forceps, and partly because his inner child is jumping up and down and squealing. He tamps down on the kid that’s clawing his way to the surface in his cartoonish Captain America footie pajamas and takes the suture kit from his hands.

“Thanks,” Captain America breathes, and he’s observing Bucky like he’s not really sure of him, though Bucky can’t blame him. The news reports had all been pretty clear about one thing: Captain America is a vigilante, a fugitive, a wanted criminal who not only didn’t sign the Accords, but who also purportedly, just hours ago, broke his allies out of an underwater prison. Even during a long shift, Bucky couldn’t miss the news, which both of his patients had their televisions tuned to. “I’m Steve,” he says, and it’s in this offhanded way like he knows he doesn’t need to explain anything further, and, really, he doesn’t.

Bucky’s still not really sure he isn’t hallucinating, because Captain America is bleeding from his exposed abdomen and just introduced himself as fucking _Steve_. 

“Bucky,” Bucky manages to respond despite his brain not believing the situation he’s in. He tucks a strand of dark hair that’s fallen loose from his low bun behind his ear and sees a flash of something on Steve’s face that he can’t pinpoint. He takes the suture kit from Steve. “I’m a nurse and I’m not technically supposed to do stitches, but we practiced in school, so I figure I’m the most qualified of the two of us.” One corner of Steve’s lip quirks up.

“Be my guest,” Steve responds, propping himself up a little higher to allow Bucky better access.

So that’s how Bucky finds himself holding pressure to Steve’s wounds until the bleeding slows, and then cleaning and stitching up what is ostensibly a bullet hole—though the bullet passed clean through—in Steve Rogers’s side. Bucky tries to ignore the hard muscles that gather around Steve’s abdomen, swallowing against his dry throat as he presses fingers to Steve’s skin, hot even through his special, Stark-designed hospital gloves that are made not to rip across the metal of his left hand. Bucky is a professional, but he’s not _blind_, and anyway, it’s been a while since he’s seen anyone with their shirt off. Not that Steve’s completely bare-chested at the moment, but it’s enough, and in his defense, this is Captain fucking America. Anyone with a sex drive and an attraction to men would get a little worked up in the same room with him. Bucky stitches up both entry and exit wounds, and he grabs a sling for Steve’s arm too.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/160925490@N02/48969310466/in/photostream/)

“Thanks for this,” Steve says once Bucky is done, pushing himself off the floor with one arm, only barely wincing. It’s impressive, honestly.

“I should clean that, too,” Bucky replies, indicating the deep cut on Steve’s cheek. Steve reaches a hand up to ghost his fingertips across it, and they come back smeared with blood. He looks like he’s going to protest, but Bucky’s already ripping open alcohol pads. Steve raises an eyebrow as Bucky swats his hand away. “Might sting,” he warns before wiping at the cut.

That’s when Steve winces again, hard this time, recoiling at the touch, but considering the way he’d barely done that when he’d stood up—with a goddamn bullet hole in his side—Bucky realizes that Steve is mocking him, which he confirms when a grin breaks out across Steve’s face.

And that smile? It’s dazzling. It’s like seeing the sun appear on the tail of a particularly treacherous storm.

It’s not really surprising, then, what Bucky says next.

“Where are you going to go?”

Steve’s eyebrows knit together, a little crease appearing between them. He clearly had not expected the question. “I…I don’t know yet. There’s a few safehouses that Nat’s suggested. I think the closest one is near Philadelphia.” ‘Nat,’ he says, also offhandedly, also like it needs no explanation. Again, it doesn’t. Bucky knows who the Avengers are. The whole world does.

“Uh, not to rain on your parade, but how are you going to get to Philly when you can barely walk?”

“Rent a car?” Steve suggests.

Bucky can’t tell if he’s joking or not, but his default is sarcasm. “Oh, sure. You could probably get the senior citizens discount.”

Steve laughs, and the sound of it is totally unexpected—it’s kind of silly, loud and sharp. Dorky, even, and Bucky’s not sure he’s ever thought of Steve Rogers as _adorable _before, but when Steve brings his right hand to cover his chest like he’s steadying himself, it’s definitely in the realm of endearingly cute, even as he winces. “I guess I can’t test that theory without my ID, huh?” Steve asks.

“Did you leave your wallet in your other suit?” Bucky jokes. “Ah, it’s in the annoyingly patriotic one, isn’t it? That bright cobalt number?”

“I blame Phil for that one,” Steve groans, rolling his eyes and burying his face in his palm. 

“Phil?”

“He’s a—” Steve begins, but then his face falls. “He _was _a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and a good man.” Bucky doesn’t miss the sadness in his voice.

“I’m sorry,” he rushes to say, because the strained look Steve’s wearing is something Bucky desperately wants to erase, and then he blurts out, “You can stay with me.” 

He hadn’t meant to say it, but he would have said anything to get Steve to stop frowning. It works, because Steve’s suddenly smiling again. 

Bucky’s a fucking _idiot._ All rational thought has completely left him as he continues, “Y’know, until you’re better. I mean, um, you don’t know me, but I did just give you stitches, which I’ve never done on a real person, and I live alone, not too far from here, actually. Within walking distance.” Are his sentences even making sense all together? “It’s—uh—getting dark out and we can get you some scrubs—"

“Okay,” Steve interrupts, and Bucky sputters into silence because he sure as hell wasn’t expecting Steve to actually agree to this absurd, half-baked plan. Isn’t he supposed to be the brightest tactician of his time? Bucky thinks maybe Steve’s exhaustion is clouding his judgment, because going home with a complete stranger while the UN is gunning for your arrest is bordering on suicidal. 

Bucky doesn’t say any of this aloud. He does raise his eyebrows, at which Steve shrugs as if to say, “what the hell else am I going to do?”

“Okay,” Bucky echoes. He shakes his head as if to dispel whatever fog has descended on his brain. He’s usually _way _smoother than this. He’s even been accused of being _charming_, occasionally, but all of that has apparently completely left him in Steve Rogers’s presence. Which, annoyingly, would have been the perfect time to actually _use _said charm, but no, it’s gone, and he’s a stammering, stuttering, self-conscious mess. “Okay, uh, here,” he says, discarding his disposable gloves in the trashcan nearby and turning to a rack of hospital-issue navy scrubs. He selects a top and bottom that he thinks might fit Steve—though, Jesus, do they make scrubs for shoulders that broad?—and tosses them in Steve’s direction. Steve catches them easily in his one good hand and sets them down on a shelf. He tugs off the glove on his right hand with his teeth and pulls the other off with his freed hand, careful not to move his left shoulder much. Both hands then move to his utility belt, which comes undone easily at the press of a button, clunking to the tiled floor. Bucky realizes suddenly that he’s staring, and Steve looks at him, maddeningly blue eyes peering through long, dark eyelashes, with what seems to be a smile pulling at his mouth. Bucky doesn’t really see what’s remotely amusing here, but then again, his brain is currently malfunctioning, his heart hammering in his chest, blood thrumming in his ears because Captain America is _undressing_ in the same room as him. 

Oh, right. 

“I’ll just—I’ll…” Bucky turns around to face the door, cheeks hot, but Steve plants a hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

“Could use a little help here, actually,” Steve admits, maneuvering Bucky to face him again, dipping his head to indicate his left arm, which very well could be broken with the way Steve’s holding it. 

Bucky hesitates, admiring how sweat has plastered the hair around Steve’s face to his skin, before he realizes what Steve’s asking him to do. “Right. Um.” He wills his fingers not to shake (_oh my _God, _Barnes, be cool!_) as he grabs the hem of Steve’s top, and Steve’s breath catches a little when Bucky’s metal fingers slide coolly against his damp skin. Bucky rucks the top of his suit up to just under his armpits, patently working to ignore the sheen of sweat on Steve’s frankly _massive _pecs, and then moves to tug Steve’s good arm out of his sleeve. He swallows hard against his dry throat as he rakes his gaze over Steve’s bicep and forearm that’s now exposed, like every bit of skin he uncovers is more obscene than the next. Bucky tries not to jostle Steve’s hurt arm too much as they work together to remove it from the suit as well, and when Steve is finally free, Bucky can’t let his eyes flicker too low because they’re in a small room and Steve is way too close and he smells musky but with a hint of charcoal and something else that must be all Steve because it’s heady and intoxicating and Bucky really, really can’t faint here. “Thanks,” Steve says, curling his fingers around his waistband as Bucky turns on his heel before he can see anything else. He fixes the ceiling with a stare and a shiver, his metal arm whirring so loud in the silence that it sounds like a helicopter landing. It’s times like these that Bucky is really annoyed with the thing.

“Where’s your shield?” Bucky asks, because his mind has got to move to something else before he pitches a tent in his scrubs. The thought alone is almost embarrassing enough to shake his lust-addled brain. Steve is shuffling behind him, but Bucky’s not going to think about what he wears under his suit or exactly how naked Steve is now—

“Left it behind,” Steve sighs. He sounds uncomfortable, but he continues anyway. “Tony and I—” and there it is again, the offhanded, this-needs-no-explanation way he mentions his Avenger friends, “had a bit of a falling out a few weeks ago. It got kind of nasty, actually, and he sort of yelled at me that his dad made it and I didn’t deserve it, so I dropped it and just…left.”

Bucky is surprised at how honest and open Steve is being, though maybe he shouldn’t be. Maybe Captain America can’t lie—though, as soon as he thinks it, he knows how ridiculous it sounds. He wonders briefly if Steve doesn’t get to open up to people very often. “What made him say that?” Bucky asks, still staring at the ceiling.

“Tony thinks the Avengers need oversight, and he thinks that I think I’m above the law because I won’t sign the Accords, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit around and wait for a bunch of bureaucrats to sign papers while another alien army destroys a major city, or an A.I. goes rogue, or whatever the hell else the 21st century manages to conjure up.” Steve’s rambling a little, his tone exasperated. “And I won’t submit to the government using me like a weapon. Tony doesn’t see it that way. He means well, I know he does, but he never can quite see anyone’s side but his. We all ended up in a fight at an airport in Germany while he and a few of the others were trying to arrest us. I got away, but tonight I had to, you know,” he huffs, “break Sam, Clint, Wanda, and Scott out of jail, but to hell with it. I couldn’t let them stay locked away on the Raft.”

Right, Supermax prison under the Atlantic. Bucky’d heard mention of it on the news.

“So, you’re an internationally wanted fugitive and you managed to sneak into an underwater prison and break your friends out without your shield?”

Steve chuckles, a low rumble that settles somewhere deep in Bucky’s gut, sending goosebumps down his flesh arm, the plates in his metal arm shifting like they can feel it too. “I had a little help,” Steve confesses, sounding thoughtful. “Possibly some from Tony, actually. And it’s not like I came out completely unscathed, as you can see.”

“Why would Tony help you rescue the people he imprisoned?”

“I’m not sure he knew what the consequences of the Accords would be, not really,” Steve answers. “Not in the sense that good people, his _friends_, would get locked up like that. Sure, he knew it was a possibility, but to actually see it happen? I think it shook him a little. Tony’s not a bad guy, just misguided, impulsive. He lets his quick head get ahead of his good heart, sometimes.” Steve doesn’t bother masking the obvious affection in his tone. “I’m dressed, by the way,” he says. Bucky decides he’ll process all the Avengers stuff later and turns back around to see Steve, standing there in too-small navy scrubs, the sling over his shoulder, rolling his suit into a ball.

“Here, I’ll take that,” Bucky says.

“You might get blood on your stuff,” Steve warns, though he must see no alternative, and he hands the suit over.

“Is all of that blood yours, by the way?”

“No,” Steve replies, though he looks sick about it. Bucky grabs a plastic bag, tossing the suit and Steve’s gloves in and wrapping them tight before shoving them in his messenger bag. It’s weird to think of it in there: stethoscope, empty travel coffee mug, pen light, hemostat, gauze tape, Captain America’s bloody uniform. Jesus.

“Right, well, this hallway is pretty empty, usually. I can take you the quietest way out. It’s the way I take, anyway. I don’t think anyone will expect to see you in scrubs, so as long as you—"

“Yeah, it’s not my first time going incognito,” Steve smiles. “Look down, try not to bring attention to myself, don’t say anything. Got it.”

Bucky thinks it’s probably pretty hard not to bring attention to yourself when you’re 6’2” and 250 pounds of muscle tucked in skin-tight scrubs, limping, with a sling and a facial laceration, right next to a dude with a metal arm, but what does Bucky know? He nods curtly and turns to lead the way.


	2. Call It What You Want

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm, might there be a guest appearance in this one?
> 
> The artwork by winter_sergeant in this chapter is so fun and perfect.

How they make it to Bucky’s Brooklyn apartment on foot without anyone recognizing Steve is really beyond him. Sure, they had gotten some funny looks, and one woman in a neatly pressed suit had done a double-take, but Steve had slung his right arm around Bucky’s shoulders and pulled Bucky in close, head down, and forced some mild laughter. Bucky had flinched but taken the hint and ducked his head toward Steve’s to try to shield his face (and Bucky had emphatically ignored the way his heart somersaulted when their cheeks brushed), and the lady moved on without whipping out her cell phone, so it seems they’ve gotten away with it.

Bucky leads Steve up the stairs of his modest apartment building, fidgeting with the keys in his hand. Steve stays quiet on his heels, doesn’t mock when Bucky’s hand shakes a little as he turns his key in the lock.

It’s been a while since Bucky has had anyone but Becca over to his apartment. 

He’s not a slob, though, so the apartment is pretty clean. He opens the door, ushering Steve inside. Steve stops in the doorway, taking in the mismatched furniture, the one dark blue couch and the stuffy green-and-cream checkered wingback chair Bucky’s been meaning to have reupholstered. There’s a seriously cheap Walmart brand coffee table perched in front of the couch, some mail scattered on it. An electric heater designed to look like a fireplace and a flat screen TV sit at the other end of the small living room.

“My humble abode,” Bucky says, waving his flesh arm as they move inside. Steve looks utterly out of place here, but Bucky pushes forward, out of the living room and into the dining room (the whole space open-concept), setting his bag on the faded white dining room table. He has some clothes slung over a dining room chair, which he gathers and tosses into his bedroom, right off the dining room. He shuts the bedroom door, not ready to share that space with Steve yet. Or ever. His brain trips at the suggestion. “Living room, dining room, bedroom—” he can’t help the way his voice sounds a little tighter just mentioning it, “and through here is the kitchen and the bathroom.” He motions into what could probably never be called a hallway due to its miniature size that branches into the absolutely tiny kitchen on the right and the bathroom on the left. 

“I like it,” Steve declares. His eyes are trailing along the walls, observing the paintings and artwork Bucky’s acquired over time. Steve has the decency not to mention the framed comic above the electric fireplace that prominently displays his likeness, though blonder and with—if possible—bulgier muscles. Bucky flushes, swallowing, and decides not to mention it either.

“Uh, thanks. You hungry?”

“Starving,” Steve says, moving a hand over his stomach.

“What kind of food do you like?”

“Pal, before I went into the ice, everything was pretty bland. I don’t think my palate is as refined as most. The food nowadays still blows my mind.” Bucky’s not sure how to respond to him bringing up being frozen so lightheartedly, but it seems like the kind of thing he does a lot. “I don’t like cilantro, though,” Steve adds, making a face.

“Tastes like soap,” Bucky agrees, and Steve’s smile spreads into a grin. 

“Exactly!”

Bucky tears his eyes from Steve’s smile before he gets woozy with it. “Well, I need to shower, but I’ll order some Thai delivery and get you some, uh, better clothes,” Bucky says, inspecting the stretch of the scrubs across Steve’s ridiculously broad shoulders.

“Thank you, Bucky. I really appreciate all this.” 

Bucky lets out a strangled noise. He tries to bite it down, he really does, but the sound of Bucky’s name in Steve’s mouth for the first time is attractive to the point of being sinful. He just nods and disappears around the corner, slamming the door to the bathroom and frowning at his traitorous dick that’s half-hard as a result of Steve’s stupid mouth.

_Honestly_.

He showers quickly, ignores his baser needs, and tries not to think too hard about just exactly what in the fuck he’s gotten himself into. The plates in his prosthetic shift to close the gaps between them so as not to get the thing waterlogged. He gives it a swipe with some soap, resolving to clean in between the plates later. When he’s done, he wraps the towel around his waist and shuffles to his bedroom to get dressed, not daring to see if Steve’s watching him. If he’d been smarter, he would have gone to his room first and gotten clothes, but the need to get away from Steve before he embarrassed himself had taken over. He pulls on a soft green t-shirt and gray sweatpants, doesn’t bother doing anything with his hair, so long now that the tips of the strands are wetting his shirt at the shoulders, and ruffles through his drawers for something that might come close to fitting Steve. 

Bucky’s not a small guy. He stays in shape, runs a lot when his depression isn’t demanding he stay in bed, and while he’s obviously not as big as Steve, he thinks one of his bigger shirts and his slouchiest pair of black sweats will at least suffice. He finds a faded blue Yankees tee that Becca had bought him years ago that never quite fit, grabs the sweats, and stops. As far as underwear goes…he hesitates, unable to decide if Steve needs them, if it’s too weird to offer, and really doubling down on efforts not to think about Steve wearing his sweatpants _without _underwear on. He runs a hand over his face, sighing heavily, and decides that it’s probably too weird to offer to a perfect stranger anyway. He makes a mental note to do some shopping for Steve tomorrow, if Steve plans on staying longer than the night. To heal. If he needs to.

He emerges into the living room to see Steve lounging on the couch, one arm draped over the back. It’s a weird sight, something that doesn’t naturally register in a person’s brain, Captain America sprawling on the couch. Bucky sighs again, extending the clothes to Steve, who takes them with a smile.

“You can shower too. There’s a towel in there for you,” Bucky offers. Steve nods, thanks him again, and disappears.

A little while later, Bucky checks his phone to see what the status of the food is when he hears Steve yell his name. Fear pricks at him, though his rational mind tells him that if there were something dangerous in his bathroom, Steve wouldn’t need Bucky’s help to take care of it, but Bucky runs to the door anyway, swinging it open without a thought.

And _oh_. Oh. Oh, fuck.

Bucky’s mind goes blank because Steve is standing in his bathroom, black sweatpants low on his hips, and he’s shirtless. Wounds and stitches and faint bruises aside, the man is perfect—no, godlike. His blonde hair is wet and dripping down his face and neck, and as if Bucky’s not already having trouble breathing, the air is humid and hot from the shower, and Steve smells like his soap, and Bucky’s reeling from overstimulation. There’s absolutely nothing he can do when he hardens against his boxer briefs, but mercilessly, Steve isn’t looking at Bucky at all. Instead, he’s staring down at the Yankees shirt on the floor, and he’s recoiled against the wall like it’s burned him.

“Wh—what’s wrong?” Bucky asks when he regains some form of consciousness. He shifts, placing a hand against the doorframe and leaning into it, kicking one leg forward a little, hoping it hides his erection.

“_Bucky_,” Steve breathes, and there’s his goddamn name again in Steve’s stupid, perfect mouth. Doesn’t matter anyway. His dick’s already betraying him completely. Bucky shifts again uncomfortably. In answer to the question, Steve points at the offending shirt, his jaw hanging, and then points back at Bucky. “Are you—are you a _Yankees _fan?”

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/160925490@N02/48969486237/in/photostream/)

It dawns on Bucky then, and he tries to purse his lips but nothing can hold back the pealing laughter that’s bubbling out of his throat. He doubles over with it. “Oh my God, Steve,” he manages. “Are you serious?”

Steve, for one, looks like he’s never been more serious in his life. “I am _not_ wearing that,” he vows, moving like he’s going to cross his arms in front of his chest, though he winces and gives up.

“I guess you’re going shirtless, then,” Bucky quips, though the minute he says it, he regrets it. He tugs his bottom lip between his teeth.

Steve’s eyes flick to Bucky’s mouth briefly, though surely it’s just the movement that brought his eyes there. A smirk crosses Steve’s face, along with a look Bucky can’t quite read. “Fine,” he says, cocking an eyebrow.

Well, shit. That’s just not going to work seeing as Bucky can barely keep it in his pants at this point, and they still have to get through dinner. Unbidden, Bucky pictures Steve shirtless on his couch, digging into a white takeout carton with a pair of chopsticks, and the desire is so strong that he shivers, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, Steve is actually _grinning_. Bucky clears his throat. “Fuck, um—no, I’ll—I’ll get you a different shirt, Jesus. You’re such a diva.”

Steve’s jaw drops, and Bucky turns back toward his room with Steve on his heels. “Hey, I could never betray the Dodgers like that!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky waves him off, disappearing into his room and returning to the living room with a plain white t-shirt, threadbare with use. “It’s gonna be a little small.”

Steve takes it and pulls it on, and it’s definitely tugging in some places (and God, does he look appealing as hell in Bucky’s clothes), but he smiles, pulling the sling back over his shoulder and settling into one side of the couch. “Thanks again, Bucky.”

“Sure, no problem,” Bucky responds, sitting down on the other end of the couch and picking up the remote. “The food should be here soon. Do you want to watch a movie or something?”

“Yeah, but I’m probably not the best person to ask for suggestions,” Steve chuckles, the gravelly sound pleasant in a distracting way. 

Bucky fires up Netflix. “Any genre you prefer?”

“Just no war movies,” he grumbles.

“Seen enough of war, huh?”

“For a lifetime,” Steve says, though it sounds strained. Bucky’s heart sinks a little, and he aches to comfort Steve in some way but has no idea how to do that. He could share his own war stories, but he brushes the idea away.

“Comedy, then,” Bucky replies, flicking through the comedy section and settling on _Hot Tub Time Machine_.

Ten minutes into the movie, the food comes, so Bucky pauses it while paying the delivery guy. He’d ordered a lot of food because he’s starving and the Thai noodle especially is delicious left over. They tuck in to the various boxes—three entrees and a few different appetizers and sides—while watching the movie. Steve eats his food quickly and looks a little sheepish as he watches Bucky eat out of the corner of his eye. When Bucky finally puts his food down and looks over at Steve, Steve’s still watching him like he wants to say something. “What, do I have sauce on my face?” Bucky asks, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

“No,” Steve laughs. “You’re fine. It’s just—I probably should have mentioned—I eat a lot. I kinda, um, have to, with the serum, my metabolism…” he trails off.

Oh. “You can have the rest!” Bucky says, pushing his box toward Steve.

“I don’t want to eat all your food, though.” Steve runs his right hand through his still-damp hair. “You took care of me and you’re putting me up and I don’t have any way to pay you—”

“Steve, it’s fine,” Bucky says firmly, picking up the box and putting it in Steve’s hands. “Eat.”

“Yes, sir,” Steve teases. For fuck’s sake. Bucky hopes Steve doesn’t notice the way Bucky’s breath hitches in his throat. Captain America, sitting on his couch, eating Thai takeout in Bucky’s clothes, smelling like Bucky’s soap, calling him ‘sir.’ Goosebumps break out all down his good arm. He gulps, but Steve has already turned back to the movie.

Morning tumbles in unceremoniously through the slits in Bucky’s blinds. He rubs a hand down his face, scratching his cheek through his beard and rolling over with a grumble. Morning may rush in, but Bucky’s never been a morning person, even when he has to be up early for work. It takes at least three cups of coffee for him to function like a normal human, so when he finally kicks off his blankets and pads toward the bathroom, rubbing sleep from his eyes and absentmindedly pulling his hair up into a messy bun, he doesn’t even register the smell of bacon permeating his hazy thoughts. 

Robotic is his morning routine as he brushes his teeth with his eyes closed, leaning over the sink and supporting himself against it with his metal hand. When he’s done, he moves toward the kitchen, first cup of coffee on his one-track mind.

He nearly has a heart attack when he finally opens his eyes properly and sees Captain America standing over the stove and turning bacon in a pan with a pair of tongs. “Morning!” Steve says, grabbing a steaming mug of coffee off of the counter and passing it to Bucky.

“Guh,” is all Bucky can muster, though he’s able to hold onto the mug without trembling.

“I hope you don’t mind, but, you know, my metabolism,” Steve says, nodding at the crackling bacon. Bucky realizes that the oven is on too, presumably occupied with the biscuits he’d had in the fridge, and there’s a silver mixing bowl half-full of beaten eggs on the countertop.

Bucky shuts his eyes again, shaking his head to dispel the fog, and opens them to see Steve lining up the cooked bacon on a folded paper towel. “No, of course, I don’t mind. How long have you been up?”

“Since six-thirty,” Steve answers, pouring the eggs into the pan.

“Good God, you’re a morning person, aren’t you?”

Steve just grins in response, pushing the eggs around with a spatula. Bucky takes a sip of his coffee, only noticing then that the coffee cup in his hand is his mug that has a cartoonish print of Captain America’s shield on it. He sputters into the mug, looking up at Steve, who’s grinning even wider now.

“And a little shit, too, apparently,” Bucky grumbles. Steve laughs in response, shrugging like it’s not the first time someone’s accused him of it. “Did you, uh, sleep okay?” Bucky asks, grimacing a little. He’d offered his bed, but Steve categorially refused, stretching out on the couch and taking the proffered blankets and pillow.

“Yeah, slept fine,” he says mildly, focusing on the eggs he’s scrambling. “Now go sit down and drink your coffee. I’ll bring you a plate.”

Bucky does what he’s told, setting his mug down on the coffee table before flopping onto the couch. He doesn’t realize until his coffee cup is nearly empty that he hasn’t asked Steve about his injuries.

Steve reappears just as the thought develops, passing a plate to Bucky. “Hey, how are you feeling? How’s the bullet wound?”

Steve lifts his shirt—_no, _my _shirt_, Bucky’s inner monologue sings—to show off the almost completely healed skin, and Bucky thinks he probably could have just answered the question without the full abdominal display. He doesn’t miss the smug smirk Steve’s wearing when Bucky’s eyes widen at the sudden flash of skin. “Almost good as new, thanks to my incredible nurse.” He winks, which, honestly, is just…it’s not necessary, okay? “Shoulder’s fine too,” he adds, rolling it once to demonstrate. Bucky only then realizes Steve doesn’t have the sling on anymore.

Bucky coughs. “That’s—yeah, that’s great, wow. I guess that serum really comes in handy in your line of work.”

“It certainly doesn’t hurt,” Steve allows, sitting down on the couch and digging into his scrambled eggs.

“I should probably remove those stitches after breakfast,” Bucky says, taking a slice of bacon between his teeth. It’s just a little chewy still, not too crispy, which is, coincidentally, the exact way he likes it. He wonders if the serum allows Steve to read minds, but then fervently hopes not, because of all the inappropriate thoughts he’s had since he opened that damn supply room door.

“How long have you been a nurse?” Steve asks. 

Bucky doesn’t expect the question and nearly chokes on his biscuit. Captain America is asking Bucky a personal question. Over breakfast. That he cooked. “Uh, um,” he stammers, “about four years. I’m thirty though, joined the military at eighteen, got out at twenty-four,” Bucky explains. “But when I got back, I felt pretty useless for a while. I’ve always been into science, and I figured I can handle blood pretty well, so I decided to go to nursing school.” Bucky intentionally leaves out a part of the story that only his family knows, that he knows he will never, _ever _share with Steve.

“You were in the military?”

“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, sniper for the United States Army,” he deadpans with a lazy salute.

Steve offers him a wan half-smile. “Where were you stationed?”

“Afghanistan first, then Iraq.”

“Sort of in the thick of things, then, huh?”

“I imagine you know a little about that,” Bucky jokes, trying to shift the topic of conversation off himself. He doesn’t really like to talk about himself.

Steve smiles, setting his empty plate on the coffee table and bringing one knee up to his chest, his bare foot pressed against the couch. It’s such a domestic, _normal_ thing, eating breakfast, sitting on a couch in sweatpants, barefoot. It’s hard for Bucky to register, but he also kind of likes that this…this is _Steve_, not Captain America, not the guy who hurtles out of a jet without a parachute and, if history books are to be believed, jumps on top of what he thinks is a live grenade to save everyone around him.

“So, the stitches?” Steve asks, jarring Bucky out of his thoughts.

“Right, yeah. Let me grab the kit.” Bucky takes his empty plate and Steve’s, dumps them both into the sink, and grabs the suture removal kit from his bag. 

Steve has settled back into the couch again, though he’s removed his shirt. _My shirt_. Bucky’s prepared this time, though, for the way Steve looks shirtless, and he manages not to blush when he presses his gloved hands to Steve’s skin.

“You’re still hot,” Bucky muses as the fingertips of his flesh hand register the sensation. Steve cocks an eyebrow, a smile spreading across his face. “I mean, temperature-wise, asshole,” he clarifies. _Though, fucking obviously the other thing too_.

“So you don’t think I’m hot, then?” Steve’s eyes are sparkling and so, so blue, and he’s biting one side of his bottom lip in a way that’s probably illegal in all fifty states and all the U.S. territories too.

Bucky swallows hard against the sudden dryness of his throat. Is Captain America…_flirting _with him? No. No way. Captain America isn’t into men. That would have been headline news, especially to the LGBTQ+ community. 

“I mean, Steve, Jesus. Of course you are,” is what he says before he can stop himself, and it’s so obvious that he finds he’s not even embarrassed to have admitted it out loud.

If it’s possible for Steve to grin any wider than Bucky’s already witnessed, he’s doing it now. “Thanks, Buck,” he says. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

Bucky knows he’s hallucinating now, because there’s no way Steve just gave him a nickname and complimented his looks in the same sentence.

Not that Bucky doesn’t think he’s good looking. He’s always been told that he is, and he’s got enough self-esteem to be able to see what others see when he looks in the mirror. He has a strong jaw, blue-grey eyes, dark hair, and a nice build (though nowhere near as nice as Steve’s, because that’s not humanly possible). He gets a lot of compliments when he wears bracelets or rings, so he figures he has a nice forearm and hand, at least on the right side. People don’t seem put-off by his metal arm anymore, either, probably because of all the crazy shit the world has seen since Captain America became the first Avenger. So, yeah, he’s handsome, but he’s not Steve Rogers-caliber handsome.

The only way forward is to pointedly ignore what Steve’s said, because he’s probably just joking, or being nice, or both. He’s definitely not flirting.

Without replying, Bucky tugs at the first stitch with the tweezers, slipping the scissors into the loop and snipping, and then pulls the first stitch out, dropping it in the empty suture removal packaging. He’s tugging at the second stitch, about to insert the scissors when the second strangest thing to happen to him in the last twenty-four hours—or possibly ever—happens.

“Morning, boys,” a velvety voice says from behind them. Bucky startles, accidentally nicking Steve’s wound with the tip of the scissors. Bucky swears loudly, but, to Steve’s credit, Steve doesn’t even flinch.

“Natasha,” Steve sighs like he’s not surprised. Bucky stands and turns, scissors still in hand, servos in his left arm whirring, and his eyes settle on a short redheaded woman, dressed in an all-black, skin-tight suit. She has one perfectly shaped eyebrow raised, her arms crossed in front of her chest. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who she is.

“Black Widow,” Bucky breathes without trying to hide the reverence in his voice. How in the absolute _fuck _is this his life right now, Captain America and Black Widow having a stare-off in his living room? Jesus _fucking _Christ. As if she can read Bucky’s thoughts (and, hell, maybe she can), she smirks, looking down at Bucky’s scissors, and Bucky thinks the smile makes her look even more menacing than before.

“How did you find me here?” Steve asks, moving to stand. He pulls his discarded shirt back over his head as he does.

“How the hell did you even get _in_?” Bucky adds, looking around. The door and windows are all still locked, to his knowledge, and he doesn’t have a spare key hidden anywhere.

“I have my ways,” she says, and the answer works for both questions.

“There’s a fucking tracker in the suit, isn’t there?” Though Steve hadn’t seemed surprised at the intrusion, he does seem to be getting angry, squaring his shoulders, his hands curling into fists at his sides. Apparently, he can muster Captain America even in sweatpants with tousled morning hair. It’s a damn sight to behold. Not to mention that he’s just said “fuck,” which fills Bucky with something bordering on glee.

Black Widow, or Natasha, barely lifts a shoulder. “Of course there’s a tracker in the suit, Steve.”

“How long do I have?” Steve asks, pushing past her to the front door. Bucky isn’t sure what his plan is here, because the guy doesn’t even have shoes on, but he figures that probably hasn’t stopped him before.

“Relax,” Natasha chides, rolling her eyes. “I jammed the signal remotely after I found out Clint was arrested. I’m the only one who can track you.”

Steve’s narrowed eyes soften into understanding as he turns back to her. “You knew I’d break them out.”

“I knew you’d try.”

“You’re the one who deactivated the alarms and the security feed on the Raft.”

“You can’t prove that.”

Steve laughs a little, shaking his head. “Is everyone safe?” he asks, unable to hide the edge to his voice.

Natasha unfolds her arms, relaxing into a stance that’s still guarded but looks more vulnerable. “Clint and Scott are being offered a deal, house arrest. Sam’s on the run, he’s at a safehouse. Wanda and Vision are off the radar, presumably together—”

“_Vision _is off the radar?”

“I don’t think he’s going to go Ultron on us, Steve,” Natasha remarks.

If Steve disagrees, he doesn’t mention it. “How’s Rhodey?” he asks instead, wincing slightly.

“Recovering,” she answers, looking at the floor. “You should know, Tony knows I helped you escape in Germany. I’m on the run too now, but I just had to check on you, make sure you’re safe and relatively unscathed. Seems I’m not needed in either regard,” she says, eyes flicking to Bucky.

“Yeah, he’s my hero,” Steve responds, completely serious. Bucky squawks in protest, which makes them both look at him, amused.

“Well, here,” Natasha says, prying her eyes from Bucky and pressing a phone into Steve’s hand. “If anything happens, I’ll reach you on this. It’s secure. Don’t try to reach me. In the meantime, this may actually be a good place to stay,” she continues, eyeing the small apartment.

“Close to home.”

“They won’t expect it,” Natasha agrees.

“Only if Bucky’s okay with it,” Steve says, looking over at Bucky.

Bucky has only barely been following the conversation, but he finds himself nodding anyway. “Yeah, I mean, sure, as long as you need,” he accedes, his comfortable routine apparently be damned. _God dammit, Barnes, you’re harboring a known fucking fugitive in your tiny Brooklyn apartment, and that fugitive is—let me remind you—Captain _fucking _America. What the fuck are you thinking? _

“All right,” Natasha says. “Take care, Steve.”

“You too, Nat.”

She moves to plant a chaste kiss on Steve’s cheek, pats his other cheek with her hand, and maneuvers around him to open the front door. “Nice to meet you, Bucky,” she calls over her shoulder.

“Shouldn’t you, you know, not use the front door?” Bucky asks.

Natasha fixes him with a self-satisfied smile. “They won’t expect it,” she says, and then she’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're loving this so far! Hit me with a kudo if you feel so inclined. <3


	3. Dancing With Our Hands Tied

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Domestic Steve, oblivious Bucky, and a just absolutely beautiful sketch of Nurse Bucky by winter_sergeant.

Bucky is off work for the next four days. He spends the first day shopping for things Steve might need, including several outfits and an air mattress, not to mention about triple the amount of food he would normally need in a week. Steve promises to pay him back when he has access to his bank account again, apologizing with every other sentence, but Bucky waves him off. His job pays him pretty well, and he’s not going to go bankrupt. For now.

That night, Bucky can’t sleep.

Sometimes he sleeps for an entire day, and sometimes he’s awake for an entire day. He tries to do all the things his therapist has suggested during his bouts of insomnia: not watching television in bed (he’d gotten rid of the TV in his room), reading a book he’s read a million times (_Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_), not looking at his phone screen (he has it plugged up across the room on top of his dresser), breathing and relaxation exercises (breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth), but sometimes, nothing helps. So he gets up, looks at the clock (1:21 AM), and decides to make a sandwich.

He doesn’t want to wake Steve, and he knows how to be completely silent, but it turns out, he doesn’t have to be, because Steve is still on the couch, a pencil in hand, working away at something. He’s got both knees drawn up to his chest, Bucky’s old floor light illuminating the dark of the living room in an orangey glow. His eyebrows are drawn together.

Bucky’s pretty sure he hasn’t made a sound, but Steve looks up anyway. “Can’t sleep?” he asks, closing the notebook in his hands and putting it on the coffee table.

“Nope,” Bucky answers, walking over to the couch and sitting down next to Steve. It’s only then that Bucky realizes Steve is wearing the Hulk t-shirt Bucky had picked up for him jokingly. It’s a bright, shamrock green with Hulk’s pecs and abs drawn out where they’d be anatomically, a sliver of purple at the hem of the shirt where the comic-Hulk’s shorts would start. He’s also wearing a pair of gray sweats, barefoot again. “I literally can’t believe you’re wearing that.”

Steve smiles wickedly, waggling his eyebrows. “It’s perfect. Bruce would be so embarrassed. God, I can picture his face if he saw me wearing it,” Steve replies, eyes clouded as he looks past Bucky, not really at anything in particular.

“You miss them,” Bucky guesses. 

Steve presses his lips into a thin line. “Yeah. We don’t actually know where Bruce went, after Ultron last year.”

“I’m sure he’s okay,” Bucky says because that’s the kind of thing you say when you’re trying to reassure someone. It doesn’t ring authentic, though, and Bucky knows it. Steve’s frowning now, and Bucky’s really bad at this whole thing, so he does the only thing he knows how to do: change the subject. “What were you doing?” he asks, nodding toward the notebook on the table.

“Oh,” Steve says, picking it back up and flipping through the pages. “I hope you don’t mind. I saw the notebook on your bookshelf and just—sometimes I have to just—”

“It’s okay, really. I’m sure there’s some boring old nursing school notes in there. I don’t keep a diary or anything,” Bucky says, smiling. Steve stops flipping, folding the notebook open to the page he was using. He licks his lips, taps his fingers on the page, hums a little under his breath. “You don’t have to show me—” but Steve interrupts him by shoving the notebook into his hands.

It’s a drawing. It’s his electric fireplace, a squat little thing that actually plugs into the wall and heats up, with fake glowing logs and flickering fire. It’s unplugged now though, mute and black against the opposite wall, the top of it mantle-like and housing some of Bucky’s favorite things: a framed picture of him and his sister, a cactus planted in a shiny purple coffee mug, and an old glass bottle that Bucky had poured a mixture of cornflower blue and jade paint into and then let the paint run out of à la a project he’d seen on Pinterest, a smattering of fake purple wildflowers shoved into it. Though Steve had been drawing it with just a number two pencil, he’d shaded it in all the right places, the cactus looking slightly wilted but determined, the fake wildflowers opening up toward the nearby window like they wish to be real, and Bucky and Becca’s smiling faces, Bucky’s almost a grimace as their mom insisted they get a picture behind the syringe-shaped cake they’d surprised him with for his 30th birthday. Bucky’s heart lurches, trying to wish away the blue lines of his college-ruled notebook obscuring some of the line work.

“It’s just a sketch,” Steve says after a long stretch of silence. He’s reaching out to take the notebook from Bucky. “I’m rusty, I know.”

“Steve,” Bucky croaks. “It’s…it’s amazing. You’re really talented.”

Steve’s face lights up with a smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bucky responds, handing the notebook back. “I didn’t know you could draw.”

“It’s not one of my most marketable skills,” Steve chuckles, tracing the drawing with his fingers. Bucky thinks about Steve’s hands, how they’re strong enough to crush someone’s throat but delicate enough to trace the far-away lines of Bucky’s face in a picture frame. The thought is awe-inducing, if not a little arousing, much like everything Bucky’s learned about Steve in just the last two days. _Steve_, who seems to be separating from _Captain America _in Bucky’s mind. He’s sure Steve has all the qualities of Captain America ingrained in him, but there’s more, there’s stuff _beyond_ Bucky’s lucky enough to get to see. He hasn’t really thought of it before, of Captain America having a human side. It’s refreshing, and maybe a little sad.

Bucky clears his throat. “You should do it more, draw. You know, since you have some downtime.” 

Steve huffs a small laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners, indicating it’s genuine. “Fair point,” he concedes, flipping the page and picking up the pencil again, glancing around the room before putting the end of the pencil between his teeth.

The gesture sends chills down Bucky’s spine and he absentmindedly tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. Steve’s eyes flick to the movement but dart away quickly.

“I was gonna make a sandwich. You hungry?”

“Always,” Steve says, smiling around the pencil.

The next morning, after an indecent amount of coffee, Bucky goes to the art supplies store a few blocks away and buys Steve a sketchpad, some regular and colored pencils, and some charcoal, because he’s not sure what Steve likes to use.

When he presents Steve with the bags of stuff he’s bought, Steve stares at it all, spread out on the coffee table, blinking slowly. Bucky thinks maybe he’s overstepped and feels a twinge of humiliation until Steve rises from the couch and pulls Bucky into a hug.

It’s the first time Steve has hugged him. It may be the only time Steve _will _ever hug him, so Bucky wastes no time putting his arms around Steve’s back, pressing his palms to Steve’s shoulder blades, and Bucky can feel his heat even in his prosthetic hand. Steve’s breathing a little harder than usual, tucking his chin over Bucky’s shoulder, face inordinately close to Bucky’s skin, so close that he can feel Steve’s breath at the nape of his neck. Before his mind can wander, Bucky pulls back.

“Thank you, Buck,” Steve says, his voice a little strangled. He’s smiling warmly, his blue eyes glassy and beautiful beneath his long, dark lashes. “This is the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. I don’t know how I could ever repay you.”

“It’s no problem,” Bucky responds hurriedly. “Really, Steve, I mean, you do enough, y’know, for the whole world. It’s the least I could do.”

Steve’s smile falters a bit, but he sits and immediately picks up the sketchpad and a compressed charcoal stick. Bucky tries hard to ignore the way his fingers hold it, skin blackening at his fingertips, and the soft sounds as he traces the charcoal along the rough texture of the page.

The following couple of days are nothing like the first couple. There are no more unexpected drop-ins from any Avenger or Avenger-adjacent people. Bucky discovers that Steve loves Disney movies, having seen _Snow White _in theaters (which absolutely blows Bucky’s mind), so they start with the early ones with every intention to go through them in chronological order. When neither of them can sleep, they sit in the quiet, lamplit living room, Bucky reading while Steve draws.

Bucky figures out pretty quickly that Steve’s repertoire for cooking does not extend past breakfast foods. 

“How do you eat the way you do and not know how to cook?” he asks incredulously, pausing _Beauty and the Beast _in the middle of Be Our Guest.

Steve shrugs. “Restaurants, takeout.”

“And how the hell do you afford that?”

“Seventy years of army backpay.”

Bucky blinks, unsure if he should laugh or not, when Steve grins at him. Cheeky bastard. Bucky shakes his head, chuckling. “All right, get up,” he demands, standing and walking toward the kitchen. When he doesn’t hear Steve behind him he calls over his shoulder, “That’s an order, soldier!”

Steve acquiesces, following him into the kitchen and leaning against the doorframe, hands tucked into the pockets of his dark wash jeans. He’s finally sporting a t-shirt that fits, though he seems to prefer white ones that still leave very little to the imagination. “You know, I don’t have to take orders from you. I outrank you, Sarge,” he teases.

“No lip from you, Captain,” Bucky says, turning the dial on the oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit and pulling a bowl from the cabinet.

“Sir, yes, sir,” Steve replies, straightening to salute him. Bucky’s mouth goes dry because Steve taking orders from him is—_jeez_. He _really _can’t go down that road. Steve can’t miss that Bucky has frozen in place though, and he grins at Bucky, biting his lip. Bucky clears his throat and opens the refrigerator, pulling out a bundle of parsley and shoving it at Steve.

“Mince this,” he says, indicating the knife block and passing Steve a wooden cutting board. Steve raises an eyebrow, taking the parsley and a knife and staring at it. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how to mince,” Bucky grumbles, at which Steve shrugs, and Bucky rolls his eyes, taking the knife from Steve and hip-checking him out of the way. “It’s easy, here,” he says, showing Steve how to mince the parsley into fine bits.

“Smells good,” Steve observes, taking over for Bucky as he gathers the rest of the ingredients. “What are we making?”

“Pizza.” Bucky stirs olive oil and garlic powder in a small bowl as Steve minces the parsley, and he can’t decide if he’s made a huge mistake. On the one hand, being this close to Steve in his tiny kitchen with barely any counter space is forcing them to touch, elbows bumping and forearms grazing. It’s nice, but on the other hand, it’s dangerous. Being this close to Steve is making his body behave in ways he doesn’t ask it to, moving closer than he needs to, chest brushing Steve’s back when he has to make his way by him to the pantry.

Bucky keeps giving Steve things to mince or slice—garlic, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella. Steve figures it out easily, and he actually stops what he’s doing and listens when Bucky explains each step. When Bucky grabs the pre-made dough from the fridge and puts the canister on the counter, he pulls the black hair tie off his wrist and gathers his hair in his flesh hand, twisting it into a small bun that still leaves some shorter strands free around his face. He tucks the strands behind his ears and goes to peel the canister of dough open when he sees Steve looking at him out of the corner of his eye, a small smile playing on his lips. Steve is halfway through slicing the last tomato, hand stilled on the knife.

“What?” Bucky asks, tapping the canister of dough on the counter until it pops open. Steve ducks his head, and Bucky could swear a small blush dusts his cheeks.

“What’s that?” Steve asks, ignoring the question and nodding at the dough.

Bucky narrows his eyes at Steve but decides not to press. “It’s the pizza crust. I’m way too lazy to make it myself, so I buy the pre-made kind.”

“Hm,” Steve says, turning back to his tomatoes.

_Hm_, Bucky thinks.

The pizza turns out better than even Bucky expected, and he finds he likes to watch Steve’s face as he eats, especially when he closes his eyes and moans.

When Bucky goes to work, he goes reluctantly, a little worried about Steve spending twelve hours a day alone, but Steve doesn’t seem to mind. He occupies himself with Netflix, and Bucky lets him borrow more workout shorts and gets him some weights to use. One night, Bucky comes home to Steve having cleaned the apartment, which Bucky scolds him for, but Steve insists that he’s doing his part in exchange for free lodging. Bucky rolls his eyes but acquiesces.

On the third night of his back-to-back shifts, Bucky’s exhausted when he trudges into the apartment. One of his patients had been a 30-year-old who had overdosed on opioids and gotten into a small car accident and had been found unresponsive on the scene. They had rushed him to the hospital and induced hypothermia on him, but his EEG showed total braindeath. Less than half an hour later, a patient who had been discharged to a step-down unit had been led back onto the ICU by no less than ten fully-grown men, screaming about how his car had gotten stolen and he needed to call the police, and they had to put him in leather restraints that they locked with a key; Bucky had later found out that the man was hallucinating because he was experiencing alcohol withdrawal, and the man would start yelling every ten minutes about something else he was seeing that wasn’t really there. While that patient yelled, another patient had coded without warning, so Bucky had to rush in and start doing chest compressions, which he did on and off for an hour, to no avail—they called time of death just as another patient, frail and confused, decided to get out of bed and clean his own room. Bucky had been lucky enough to have been walking by the room when the man started to fall, and he was able to catch him before he hit the ground.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/160925490@N02/48969474572/in/dateposted/)

So, yeah, all-in-all, very fucking exhausted. Steve is in the kitchen, cooking something that smells like taco meat (_thank God for Google_, Bucky thinks), when Bucky throws his bag on the floor and all but falls face-first onto the couch.

“Hey, Buck!” Steve calls from the kitchen. Even Steve’s nickname for him can’t lighten his mood, and Bucky only grunts in response, burying his face in a throw pillow. “You okay?” Steve’s voice has gotten closer. He’s hovering over Bucky now, and Bucky peers up at him, scowling. “Bad day?” Bucky grunts again, punching at the throw pillow. “I’ve got tacos ready. I’ll bring you a plate.”

Bucky’s still silent an hour later, after dinner and a shower, unable to put into words exactly how shitty his day has been. He’s aching all over, his feet and arms sore, and he sighs heavily. Steve has been patient, not prodding or asking too many questions, just squeezing Bucky’s shoulder and picking out an innocuous TV show to put on in the background as he sketches. Finally, Bucky flings a bare foot across the couch toward Steve, and Steve puts his sketchbook down, looking at Bucky’s foot and up at Bucky again. “You want a foot massage?”

It’s the very last thing Bucky expects, but God, does he need one, and his brain is too fuzzy to overthink it. “Mm,” he answers, hiking his foot onto Steve’s thigh and managing a small smile while wiggling his toes. Steve smiles too, catching the corner of his mouth between his teeth and turning toward Bucky, settling Bucky’s foot in his lap. He presses his right thumb into the arch of Bucky’s foot, and _Jesus. _ Bucky moans, tipping his head back onto the couch and flinging an arm over his eyes. He knows the sound is obscene, but _fuck_, it feels good. Steve laughs a little, pressing both thumbs up the instep and onto the ball of his foot. “Tell me something about yourself that I don’t know,” Bucky says, because now that he’s moaning in the silence, it’s a little too charged for him.

“Like what?”

“Whatever, anything,” he says. He suddenly remembers a tidbit from history class. “Your mom’s name was Sarah.”

“Yeah, and I used to wear newspapers in my shoes,” Steve admits.

Bucky laughs, uncovering his face to look at Steve. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, his fingers moving dexterously across Bucky’s skin, “so I could ride the rides at Coney Island. I was too short, but Ma would take me there when we could afford to go.” He breathes a huff of quiet laughter. “When I wasn’t too sick to go, which wasn’t often,” he amends, pressing both thumbs into a particularly sore spot on Bucky’s foot, which pulls another groan from Bucky. Steve’s fingers still momentarily, and he clears his throat before continuing. “Ma was a nurse too, actually.”

“Really? Wow, things must have been so different when she was practicing.”

“Yeah, I imagine you don’t see many iron lungs in your line of work anymore.”

“God, no.”

“Anyway, Ma had to work full-time to support us both. My dad died before I was born, in World War I.”

“Jesus, Steve. Has anyone ever told you your life is really tragic?” Bucky says before he can stop himself. He’s immediately horrified, but to his credit, Steve chuckles.

“It really was,” Steve admits. “But the future’s not so bad. Food’s a lot better, we used to boil everything. No polio is good. Internet, so helpful.”

“Oh yeah, not to mention the future’s all about doing away with face-to-face contact. We barely need to use words anymore. I mean, I communicate in gif format only.”

“I’m glad I don’t have a cell phone, then,” Steve muses.

“Why’s that?”

“I like talking to you.” Bucky is stunned into sudden silence. He thinks he must look like a fish with the way his mouth is opening and closing and there’s no sound coming out. He’s saved from having to respond when Steve continues, “So, yeah, being an only parent was really hard on Ma because I was in the hospital a lot, and not just because I was sick. I got into a lot of fights.”

“Oh yeah?” Bucky manages weakly, his heart still somersaulting in his chest.

Steve hums. “The first fight I ever got into was because this kid Harry called a girl stupid. I was eight, and I punched him right in the teeth,” Steve recalls, laughing. The far-away look on his face is beautiful, maybe the most beautiful Bucky’s ever seen him look, recalling his past life, his hands soft against Bucky’s skin, pressing in. “Broke my knuckles on his mouth. Got a couple of licks in, too, before he was able to knock me out cold. Every fight after that was more of the same. Just couldn’t stand bullies.”

“Still can’t, it seems,” Bucky supplies, and he gasps as Steve trails his deft fingers along the arch of his foot again. “Fuck, that feels good,” he says. Steve laughs, tapping Bucky’s other leg, and Bucky understands the gesture, swinging his other foot off the floor into Steve’s lap, feeling rather noodley as Steve starts to massage that foot too.

“You have a point,” Steve answers. “Only now it’s a lot harder for me to _lose _the fight.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighs. “Also kind of makes it impossible to step away from it all, though.”

“Step away from it all?” Bucky echoes. “Like…retire from being Captain America?”

Steve’s fingers stop moving and he cocks his head. “I don’t know if I could,” he starts, sighing again, fingers back to massaging Bucky’s foot. “I don’t know if I could see something like the Chitauri attack happening and do nothing, especially with my…abilities.”

“Sure, that makes sense. Hell, even _I _couldn’t see that happening and do nothing, and I’m not a superhero,” Bucky says before he can even think to stop himself.

Fuck.

“What do you mean?” Steve’s fingers have stilled again.

“Hm? Oh, uh, nothing,” Bucky says, closing his eyes. Fuck, he’s such a bad liar. This is not a conversation he wants to have, with Steve, or anyone, maybe ever again.

“Bucky…” Steve’s voice is concerned, prodding. Bucky’s foot is encircled in Steve’s warm hands, Steve’s palms soft against his skin.

Suddenly it’s a little too much, and Bucky pulls his feet away, sitting up. “It’s been a long day,” he says, standing, not meeting Steve’s eyes. “I’m gonna go to bed.”

Steve stands too, though, and Bucky can see the fight in his stance. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“It’s nothing, Steve,” Bucky responds, exasperated now. “Let it go.”

Steve purses his lips, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “I think we’ve already established that I have a hard time letting things go.”

“This doesn’t concern you!” Bucky’s raising his voice, he knows, but Steve is pushing, and Bucky doesn’t like to be pushed.

Steve scowls, looks like he’s going to press on, but says, “Fine.”

“Fine,” Bucky snaps, turning on his heel, going into his bedroom, and shoving the door shut behind him. He knows it’s an overreaction, but he doesn’t like to think about that time in his life, and it was his own fault that he so carelessly brought it up. He’s really mad at himself, not at Steve, who’d just spent the entire night cooking for him and massaging his feet and laying out his whole life story. Bucky buries his head in his pillow and goes to sleep feeling even worse than he felt before.


	4. So It Goes...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the "coming out" tag comes in.
> 
> Also, please heed the "PTSD" tag for this chapter as well. <3

The next morning, they both pretend to have forgotten the previous night’s events. Bucky is grateful, because he can’t go down that road. Steve must sense that, so he doesn’t bring it up, just hands Bucky his Captain America mug full of hot, black coffee and points the spatula toward the living room, as if to order him out of the kitchen. Bucky complies, relieved.

Over the next few weeks, Steve Rogers inexplicably becomes part of Bucky’s routine. At first it’s strange, coming home to someone, especially when that someone is Captain America. After a while, though, it’s easier, more comfortable, and he’s coming home to _Steve_, not Captain America. It’s gradual, but it starts to feel natural. Cozy, even, if Bucky’s being honest with himself, but he shoves the thought aside whenever it starts to overwhelm him.

Because he’s maybe, kind of, a_ little_, _perhaps_…developing a crush.

Yeah, he’d been attracted to Steve from day one. He doubts there’s anyone on this planet—or any other, for that matter—who wouldn’t be, but he’s gotten to know Steve now, and it’s more than that. Steve’s quiet, a listener, and he leans in whenever Bucky is talking, like he’s really _hearing _what Bucky says rather than waiting to respond. He’s a smartass, too, which Bucky loves, and they can go toe-to-toe in the sarcasm department. Steve likes to point out that Bucky’s a fan of Captain America, mercilessly teasing him about the pajama pants with little Captain America shields all over them that Bucky accidentally pulled on one morning before he’d had his coffee. Bucky, in turn, buys Steve so much Avenger merch (never Captain America, though, pointedly) that Steve rarely wears anything else—just jeans or sweatpants and an Avenger tee, and sometimes Avenger socks. Steve also likes to touch, though the jury’s out on whether or not Steve likes to touch _everyone_ this much or Bucky specifically. He always presses his knee to Bucky’s under the dining room table, slings an arm around the back of the couch and brushes Bucky’s shoulder with his fingertips, catches Bucky’s wrist in his palm to get his attention when Bucky’s not facing him, and one night, even digs his toes under Bucky’s thigh when they’re watching _The Lion King_. Bucky likes it, _God_, he _loves _it, even, and wills his heart to stop hammering in his chest with every bit of contact.

It’s really hard to do.

About a month into Steve’s stay, Bucky forces himself to go to the gym. He hasn’t been in a while, and he really needs to get a workout in. He feels bad for Steve, who he can tell is itching to do something physically challenging, so he offers him some gym shorts so he can work out at the apartment while Bucky is gone.

“Thanks!” Steve says sincerely.

“Sure,” Bucky responds, tugging the hair tie off his wrist and pulling his hair back. He tucks his lower lip between his teeth and screws up his face as he combs his fingers through it before pulling it into a loose bun. Patting the top of his head to check for any bumps and finding a few, he tugs it down again with a huff, putting the hair tie between his teeth as he fusses with it.

When he finally gets it into a messy bun at the back of his head, he looks up to see that Steve is still standing in front of him with his shorts in one hand, looking a little dumbstruck. Steve drags his eyes down from Bucky’s hair to look at him directly, licking his lips. “What?” Bucky asks, running a hand over his hair again self-consciously. Steve drops his eyes to the floor.

“Hm?” Steve answers, not convincingly. Bucky raises an eyebrow at Steve. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Steve was embarrassed about something. Sure enough, a flush is pinking up his cheeks. Steve swallows and rubs at the back of his neck, still focusing on the ground.

“You were staring,” Bucky prompts, feeling a smile forming on his face. Steve is getting redder by the second. They really should report on this kind of stuff more: the way Steve’s skin reddens all the way down to the collar of his shirt, how he shifts on his feet when he’s itching to run, how his smile brightens up his whole face, and those _eyelashes_, damn. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Steve says. He looks up at Bucky again, the muscles in his jaw straining as he clenches his teeth.

Bucky has no idea what to makes of this interaction, and he tucks a loose strand of hair behind his ear, which Steve’s eyes track, and Steve licks his lips again. Huh. “Okay, well, I’ll be back in a little while,” Bucky says, turning away, patently ignoring the explanations his brain is trying to supply.

When he gets back to his apartment after his workout, a white towel slung across the back of his neck and hanging over his shoulders, Steve is in the dining room doing push-ups on Bucky’s black yoga mat.

Steve is doing push-ups on Bucky’s yoga mat in Bucky’s dining room. Shirtless.

Bucky had seen Steve shirtless in the hospital (briefly) and during the Yankees shirt incident, and yeah, Steve had been shower-wet then, but there’s something even more erotic to this. His hair is hanging down in front of his face, dripping sweat onto the mat. His arms, shoulders, and back are slick with it. The muscles in his arms are bunching and straining against his skin with each push-up, though Steve doesn’t seem to be getting tired.

Bucky isn’t sure how long he stands there when Steve finally relents, pushing himself into standing position and slicking his wet hair back with a hand. He’s breathing a little heavy when he spots Bucky standing by the door, and a grin erupts on his face.

“Hey, Buck! How was your workout?” he asks, planting his hands on his hips and shifting his weight to one side.

Now that Bucky has the full view of Steve’s front, he can see there’s no scar left from the bullet wound. He can also see Steve’s pecs, which are fucking _glorious_, the pink of his nipples indecent against his pale skin. His eyes trail down Steve’s rock-hard abdominal muscles to his navel, down to the line of dark hair that begins there and leads down to the waistband of Bucky’s black gym shorts. He swallows hard as his eyes scan the V of Steve’s hips, and he quickly shuts down his thought processes before they lead him further down that path. Literally. 

Heat and pressing, aching desire have pooled deep in his belly, blood rushing to his dick as it perks up against his boxer briefs. He tugs the towel off of his shoulders and holds it in what he hopes is a casual way in front of him to hide his erection.

“Buck?” Steve prods, but his smile is so wide it could split his face in half, and Bucky swears it looks smug as hell.

Bucky is still watching the way sweat is dripping down Steve’s neck and pooling in the cleft above his collarbone. “What?” he asks because he has no idea what Steve had said.

“How was your workout?” Steve asks again, obviously smiling through the whole thing because he’s a smug bastard. He _has _to know what he’s doing.

“Great,” Bucky finally grates out, not daring to move from the doorway. If he gets any closer to Steve like _this_…no. He can’t even think it.

“You okay, Buck?” Steve shifts his weight to his other foot, and he raises one hand to wipe the back of it against his lips, smearing sweat against them, and Bucky can only think pleadingly, _oh, God, please don’t do that_…

“Huh? Oh, sure, yeah,” Bucky whimpers, and if he had the capacity to feel anything other than aroused, he’d probably feel embarrassed. As it is, he can’t actually move at all. He’s frozen on the spot. Steve must sense this because he laughs a little, and he walks toward Bucky, which sends Bucky’s heart into overdrive, and yeah, he’s panicking. A little. A lot. Who knows.

Steve walks right up to Bucky and tugs the towel from Bucky’s hands, and Bucky doesn’t have the mental capacity to argue. Steve runs the towel over his face, and Bucky thinks it should probably be gross because he’d wiped his own sweat on that towel not thirty minutes prior, but something about the idea of his sweat on Steve is just so fucking hot that there’s no room in his mind for any other thought.

He knows, vaguely, that Steve can probably see his erection through his gym shorts, but he can’t be bothered to worry about it. Steve’s not looking, anyway. He brings the towel around to the back of his head, drying his hair off with it, all while looking at Bucky’s face with that stupid smug smile, his eyebrows raised.

“You wanna shower?” Steve asks.

Something about the way he says it forces Bucky’s brain to catch up. He swallows down the lump in his throat. “Um. Yeah. Yes. I’m gonna—” he steps forward to move by Steve, but Steve doesn’t move, and Bucky’s suddenly so close that he can smell his sweat. It’s heady and sexy and _Steve_. His breath hitches in his throat, and he has to force himself to keep moving, bumping Steve’s shoulder a little with his own. He mumbles an apology before hightailing it to the bathroom.

Bucky steps into the shower, barely waiting for the water to warm before he jacks off, his metal forearm pressed to the tile and the image of Steve shirtless and sweating seared into his brain.

One night, Bucky puts on _Scott Pilgrim vs. The World_ (he’s never noticed before, but the guy who plays Lucas Lee looks like a younger, douchier Steve), and decides something as they watch. 

Bucky hasn’t officially come out to Steve yet, but he’s been living with the guy for a month and a half and he thinks it’s time; besides, he’s been feeling guilty about the inappropriate-thoughts-in-the-shower thing.

He’s not sure how Steve will react, having grown up in a time when being gay was Very Not Okay, but he thinks he owes it to Steve to tell him. Besides, they’re friends. If friends sometimes had inappropriate thoughts about their incredibly handsome, endlessly kind, eternally patient roommates. _Sometimes_ being the operative word there. It’s definitely more of a sometimes than an often. 

What? It is!

When the movie is over, Bucky glances at Steve, taking a deep breath. “I’m gay,” he blurts out without preamble. Steve turns to Bucky, raising his eyebrows a little, looking like he’s suppressing a smile, but he doesn’t respond, so Bucky continues. “I just thought you should know, because we live together and, um, yeah. I hope that doesn’t make you uncomf—actually, if it does, I mean, that sucks, but that’s on you, because I can’t help who I’m attracted to and I don’t know if anyone explained it to you, but being gay isn’t something that has to be a secret anymore, and there are always going to be assholes who want to hurt us or take our rights away, but these days, those people are the minority—”

“Bucky, whoa, slow down,” Steve says, grinning now, reaching over to put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder to stop him from rambling. “It’s okay, I’m fine with it. Be a bit hypocritical if I wasn’t.”

“Okay, good, because I—wait, _what_?” Bucky stills, his brain registering what Steve had said. 

“I’m, um, bisexual,” Steve says after a beat. He looks like he’s steeling himself, jutting his chin out just a little as he says it.

Bucky’s heart is beating so hard it might actually fracture his ribs. “You’re…” he says, but he can’t finish the question.

“Bi, yes,” Steve affirms. Bucky assumes his face looks as dumbstruck as he feels, and he closes his mouth, which had fallen open at some point during the conversation. “Sam explained all of this to me a while ago. It’s nice, to be able to be—what is it? Out?”

“Out, out of the closet, yeah,” Bucky manages, though he notices his voice is a little choked. He clears his throat.

“Right,” Steve smiles.

“I feel like I would have remembered that headline,” Bucky teases, nudging Steve’s elbow, feeling buoyed by his confession. Not to mention, his body is always reaching out for Steve against his will, it seems.

Steve rolls his eyes. “I guess Captain America isn’t out of the closet yet,” he amends. “Pepper says she can handle it, the whole PR nightmare that would come with that admission, but I just don’t see why anyone cares. It’s _my _life,” Steve huffs, running a hand through his hair, bouncing the ball of his foot on the floor.

Bucky contemplates that for a second. “I understand that. It was hard enough to come out to my family and friends. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to come out to the whole world and have people write articles and shit about it. I mean, you’d probably break the internet.” They both laugh, and Bucky shakes his head. “But it could be an opportunity, too. I know it would mean a lot to people who haven’t had the courage to come out yet. It would have meant a lot to me as a kid, to see my hero coming out.”

Steve’s ears perk up a little, and his whole face seems lit up. “Your hero?” he asks, and the smile he’s sporting is less of a smirk and more of a beam.

“Shut up, Rogers, you know what I mean,” Bucky grumbles, running a hand through his hair. Steve watches him do it out of the corner of his eye, but that doesn’t mean anything. “Seriously, it would help a lot of people, I bet, but don’t forget—you don’t owe the world anything, Steve. You don’t have to come out if you don’t want to.” Steve seems to think about that for a second, and Bucky suddenly knows what he’s thinking. Now that Bucky has mentioned it, Steve thinks he _does _owe the world this, that he owes the world himself, because the world made him, and the thought infuriates Bucky. “No, Steve, listen to me. Science might have given you super strength and healing and speed and all that, but who _you _are? The guy who punched a kid in the face because he called a girl stupid? The guy who won’t let the government tell him when he can and cannot save the world? The guy who would rather be a fugitive than be used as a weapon? That guy doesn’t owe anyone a damn thing. It would be nice for some people to see you come out, sure, but you don’t _owe_ that to them. You give the world enough. If you decide to come out, you come out for _you_, not for them.”

Steve’s eyes look a little glassy as he regards Bucky, and he swallows hard. Bucky’s hand has inched closer to Steve on the couch between them, and Steve suddenly covers Bucky’s hand with his own, squeezing it. “Thanks for saying that, Buck. Thanks for—” he moves his hand from Bucky’s, gesturing widely, “—everything.”

“Hey, the way I see it, you saved New York. You saved this apartment. You deserve to be here.”

Steve offers Bucky a half-smile, but it looks a little strained.

Bucky wakes up covered in sweat, shooting up and gasping for breath. He hears screaming and the sound of concrete crumbling all around him. The roar of falling stone turns into the beat of helicopter blades in the air, the _whump _of distant detonation, the popping of bullets all around as they punch through packed desert sand. He vaguely registers that he’s yelling.

“—ucky?” he hears distantly amid the cacophony of war. The clear voice sounds so out of place among it all. Two warm hands press into his shoulders. There’s someone in front of him, kneeling, running one of those warm hands down his flesh arm. “Pal, buddy, Bucky, shh, it’s okay,” the voice whispers. Not _the voice_…_Steve’s _voice. Steve.

“S—Steve?” Bucky rasps.

“Yeah, hey, it’s me, it’s okay,” he says, trailing his hand back up Bucky’s arm. Bucky realizes they’re on the floor of his bedroom and his knees are tucked up under his chin. He’s shaking.

“W—what—”

“You were having a nightmare,” Steve says, his hand cupping Bucky’s jaw now. “Listen, I got you. Just breathe with me, okay?” Steve tugs one of Bucky’s hands up and puts it over Steve’s chest. “Feel me breathing? Breathe in when I do. Can you do that for me?” Bucky nods. “Good, okay,” Steve says, quieting and inhaling slowly. Bucky follows suit, inhaling deeply with Steve, holding his breath for a few seconds, and exhaling when Steve does. They do this for a couple of minutes, and Bucky can feel his panic subsiding. “You’re doing so good, Buck,” Steve whispers, his own huge, warm hand still covering Bucky’s on his chest. They sit like that for a while, Bucky finally letting his legs fall straight out in front of him, his back pressed against the foot of his bed. He frees his hand from Steve’s, dragging it through his messy hair. Steve swallows audibly.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, voice a little shaky.

“Don’t apologize, Buck,” Steve responds quickly. “I get ‘em too, sometimes.”

“Thank you for—”

“Don’t mention it.”

“I think…I think I’m all right now,” Bucky says. Steve nods and they both climb to their feet, Bucky wiping the sweat from his brow and crawling back into bed. Steve hovers in the doorway. “Steve?” Bucky says before he can stop himself.

“Yeah?”

“Can—can you…could you—” Bucky finds he can’t quite get the words out.

“You want me to, uh…” Steve says, taking a step forward.

“Can you stay here?” Bucky finally manages, huffing out a sigh. He hates to ask for help, but his therapist had told him he should ask for it when he needs it, and he really, _really _needs it right now, and yeah, he’s asking Steve fucking Rogers to sleep in his bed with him, but the lingering anxiety is begging him to reach out. He can’t think about anything else.

“Of course, yeah,” Steve agrees, and faster than Bucky’s eyes can track, Steve is settling into bed next to him, pulling the sheets up over them both.

Bucky feels like honey drizzled on still-warm toast. His pillow is strange but still soft under his head as he rubs his cheek against it. Hmm, it smells good too, like crushed lavender buds, earth greens, and chamomile—clean and a little dark, and aromatic as hell. It’s a smell he’s come to associate with being close to Steve.

Yeah, it smells like Steve.

At that realization, Bucky becomes aware of several things at once.

His cheek is resting against Steve’s bicep, which is tucked under his head, and his back is pushed up against Steve’s chest, which is radiating more heat than his electric fireplace. He feels Steve’s hot breath against the nape of his neck and he imagines how close Steve’s lips must be to his skin. Steve’s other arm is draped over Bucky and one of Steve’s legs is nudged between his own.

It’s all a little surreal, but nothing is as surreal as the thing that’s poking Bucky in the ass.

Because unless Bucky is sorely mistaken, Steve has morning wood, and it’s pressed against Bucky, and _god_, as if Bucky wasn’t hard enough every morning without Steve in his goddamn bed and his dick pulsing against him. Even between both Bucky and Steve’s pajama pants, it’s not hard to tell that the guy is _massive_. Not that Bucky had expected anything else. Bucky can’t bite back the whimper that escapes him.

Steve must hear it, because he shifts a little, ducking his head closer to Bucky’s so that his mouth rests against the skin on the back of Bucky’s neck. 

Jesus.

Bucky clears his throat, shifting like he’s trying to free himself from under Steve’s heavy arm. Steve only tightens his grip, though, making a humming noise of disapproval and _nuzzling _the back of Bucky’s neck with his nose.

Bucky can’t take it because his heart is somersaulting in his chest and his dick is rock hard and he _has to get out of there_.

“Steve,” he manages to say, barely lifting his metal arm that is trapped beneath Steve. Steve moans a little, clamping down tighter. Steve is apparently akin to an octopus when he cuddles. _Noted._

Not that that’s something Bucky really needs to note. But.

“_Steve_,” Bucky tries again, a little louder this time, nudging Steve in the ribs with his metal elbow, the plates shifting as he moves.

“Ow,” Steve complains, and mercifully he removes his arm from around Bucky as he turns over.

“Wuss,” Bucky teases, turning to goose Steve in the ribs. He figures if he makes the whole thing a joke, his heart will stop demanding he crawl on top of Steve and kiss him until he doesn’t know his own name. Steve flinches, batting Bucky’s hand away as his blue eyes flutter open.

“I thought _I _was the morning person,” Steve groans, reaching behind his head and tugging the pillow out from under it. Before Bucky knows what’s coming, Steve wallops him in the face with the pillow.

Bucky’s jaw drops, and his body is cooperating enough now that his erection has died down, thank God, so he can fully focus on the fact that Steve has just hit him in the face with a pillow and is grinning at Bucky like a fucking idiot. It’s glorious.

Bucky reaches for his own pillow and tosses it at Steve’s face, but Steve grabs it out of the air almost lazily. “Not fair!” Bucky moans, shoving at Steve’s shoulder. “You’re not allowed to use your superhuman reflexes in a pillow fight.” Steve just laughs and hits Bucky in the side with Bucky’s pillow. “Ugh, you’re a menace, Rogers.”

Steve bites his lip, which is _really _unfair, and props himself up on his elbow, his jaw in his hand. Bucky does the same, mirroring Steve. It feels intimate, lying in bed next to Steve, both of them looking at each other in the morning light that’s climbing in through Bucky’s blinds.

“How are you feeling?” Steve asks.

Bucky runs his flesh hand through his hair, which he hopes isn’t sticking up at any weird angles. Steve’s eyes follow the movement, and he bites at his lip again, letting it slide slowly out from between his teeth as Bucky continues carding his fingers through his hair. Bucky thinks Steve looks almost hungry, predatory as he watches Bucky fidget with his hair, and it’s sending blood rushing straight to his groin again. He sighs, lying back against the bed again so he doesn’t have to look at Steve’s stupid, gorgeous face anymore. He focuses on the ceiling instead. “Better,” he answers. “Thanks for staying with me, Steve.”

“No place I’d rather be,” Steve replies, and Bucky can’t help but glance back at Steve, who is looking down at Bucky with an expression Bucky’s never seen on his face. It’s soft, a small smile playing on his lips, his voice husky.

Bucky’s brain malfunctions, because—_what_?

He’s just being nice, Bucky supposes. They’re friends. Good friends, at this point. Maybe even best friends, as far as Bucky’s concerned. He’s not sure how Steve feels in that regard, and suddenly he’s not sure he wants to know.

He doesn’t particularly want to cut their time in bed together short, but his heart is aching with the desire to press his lips to Steve’s, and it’s starting to physically hurt, so instead of lying there and staring at the sun for too long—because Steve Rogers is the sun in human form—Bucky sighs again, rolling off the bed and getting to his feet. He musses his hair, padding out of the room. “Coffee?” he calls over his shoulder, forcing himself not to look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments feed me, and I'm so, so hungry...


	5. Look What You Made Me Do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some depictions of violence and suicidal thoughts in this chapter, so heed those tags!

Bucky has been artfully dodging his friends and Becca for two months. He sees his coworkers at the hospital, but he can’t have anyone over to his apartment because of the superhero fugitive who spends all his time in his living room, and he can’t seem to tear himself away from Steve long enough to go out with his friends. Because Steve would get lonely. That’s the reason. But his friends seem unconcerned because they know he doesn’t like going out anyway.

Becca’s harder to deflect, though, and Bucky really shouldn’t be surprised when he hears a key turning in the lock one night while Steve’s in the bathroom.

“Bucky?” her voice calls as soon as the door creaks open.

Bucky nearly jumps out of his skin. As it is, he hops off the couch, stealing a quick glance toward the bathroom, hoping that Steve’s supersoldier hearing will tip him off and he won’t come out. “Becks! Jesus, what are you doing here?” he asks a little too loud, just to get the point across.

Becca shuts the door behind her and eyes Bucky suspiciously. She has her dark hair pulled up in a messy bun not unlike the one he’s taken to wearing, and she’s dressed in a long, salmon-colored t-shirt with some logo he doesn’t recognize hanging low over a pair of black leggings. She crosses her thin arms over her chest and cocks an eyebrow at Bucky. “You’ve been dodging mine and Mom’s texts. You better be glad I came to check on you before Mom hauls her ass here from Indiana and does it herself!”

“I’m fine!” Bucky says, waving his hands to indicate himself and exactly how fine he is. The back of his mind is buzzing, though, nervous, scared—for Steve, he doesn’t give a damn about himself at this point—but he’s trying not to show it.

Becca purses her lips, rolls her eyes, and moves forward to hug Bucky. He reciprocates, hoping she can’t feel his heart pounding traitorously fast. She breaks the hug and pulls back, both hands on Bucky’s shoulders. “Well, what the fuck, Barnes? You don’t smell bad and the place isn’t a wreck, so it’s not the whole depression thing.” Bucky swallows, hoping Steve didn’t hear that last bit, but his cheeks color anyway, because who is he kidding? Steve can hear a pin drop on grass from two blocks away. “Why have you been avoiding us?”

Bucky honestly has no idea how to answer this, and he’s a bad fucking liar, but he says the first thing that comes to mind. “Just been picking up extra shifts at the hospital. I’m tired when I get home, so I mostly just…sleep.”

Becca plops down on the couch, stretching her legs, and Bucky follows suit. “Damn, I was hoping it was a secret boyfriend.” At this, Bucky can feel his entire body blushing. Thinking of Steve as his secret boyfriend does things to him that he really, _really _can’t cope with right now. He tries to shut down the butterflies that are fluttering around his insides. He’s glad Steve puts his air mattress up during the day. That would be pretty tough to explain.

“No secret boyfriend,” Bucky confirms.

He sees it just a second before Becca does, and the realization comes in slow-motion, like waking up in a groggy daze and realizing your alarm hasn’t gone off and you’re already late for work. They dive for it at the same time, but Becca’s closer, and she snatches the sketchbook off the coffee table. “You’re an artist now?” she asks. Maybe, just _maybe_, Bucky can play this off. Maybe he’s been taking art classes. Maybe he’s got a favorite YouTube channel that teaches sketching. Maybe— “Bucky…”

He doesn’t know what’s coming next because he’s never opened Steve’s sketchbook before. It’s like a journal of sorts, he thinks, and he doesn’t want to intrude. Steve hasn’t offered to let Bucky see it, so Bucky hasn’t seen a single drawing of Steve’s since the one he showed him of his electric fireplace.

“They’re…” Becca’s voice is soft, barely above a whisper as it trails off.

On her lap, the sketchbook is open to a drawing. It’s done in pencil, in astounding detail, the lines light and the shading perfect, and it’s…it’s Bucky. It’s Bucky sitting on what’s become “his side” of the couch, hair pulled into a half-ponytail, leaning against the armrest with one leg tucked under him, a book propped between his fingers. She turns the page, and there’s another, in charcoal, of Bucky in profile, hair down and brushing his shoulders as he teaches Steve how to flip an egg in a skillet. The next one is Bucky again, face aglow from his laptop. Bucky in scrubs, pulling the front door shut behind him. Bucky laughing, head tipped back, his metal hand over his chest. Bucky with a bowl of popcorn balanced on his lap, one foot kicked up on the coffee table.

“They’re all of you,” Becca breathes, and there’s a _thump _from the bathroom that follows the short silence after her words. She looks up then, eyes wide and ice blue like Bucky’s, a triumphant smile on her face. “_Oh my god_, there _is _a secret boyfriend, and you’re hiding him in your bathroom!” She jumps up, tossing the sketchbook onto the couch and running toward the noise. Bucky is faster, though, and he gets to the tiny hallway before she can, putting both hands on the doorframe and blocking her with his body.

“Becca,” he warns, and he has no idea what he’s going to say, just the adrenaline pumping through him and his heartbeat whooshing in his ears and the absolute understanding that she _cannot _see who is hiding in his bathroom.

He doesn’t have to block her for long. The bathroom door opens, and he turns his head to see Steve walking out, grimacing. Bucky lowers his arms in defeat.

“Hi,” says Steve, glancing at Bucky and back at Becca, whose jaw is hanging open. “I’m—”

“Holy fucking shitballs, it’s Captain America,” Becca says, taking a step back, clutching her hand over her heart.

Bucky can’t help but laugh because none of this really makes any sense. Steve’s sketches still have his heart clenching too hard in his chest, his brain supplying question after question, excuse after excuse, and he’s wavering from awe to disbelief to fear over what’s going to happen next.

“I go by Steve, actually,” he says, reaching a hand out to shake Becca’s. She doesn’t say anything, just stands there starstruck for a few seconds, before returning the gesture and letting her tiny palm be encompassed in Steve’s. 

“B—Becca,” she manages, swallowing hard, eyes darting from Steve to Bucky and back.

“Maybe we should…” Steve says, gesturing to the couch.

“Right,” Bucky says, grabbing Becca’s wrist and tugging her into the living room. He gets her over to the couch, but she’s still wide-eyed and silent, so he puts both hands on her shoulders and pushes her gently down so she’s sitting. She obliges, eyes no longer moving from Steve. Bucky takes a seat next to her and taps her knee to get her attention, but it doesn’t work. “Becks,” he tries. Nothing. She’s staring at Steve, unblinking, like if she tears her eyes away he’ll be gone. Bucky understands that, he really does. “Listen, first of all, you can’t tell anyone Steve is here.”

Becca breaks eye contact then, looking at Bucky, finally shutting her jaw with a click of her teeth. “You’re dating Captain America.”

“No, no,” Bucky hurriedly responds, shaking his head. “We’re just…”

“Friends,” Steve supplies at the same time Bucky says, “Roommates.”

“Right, uh, friends and roommates,” Bucky corrects, biting his lip.

Becca narrows her eyes at Bucky, glancing fleetingly at the now-closed sketchbook. “Uh-huh.” It’s in a tone that clearly says _I don’t believe you_.

“I was hurt, after I broke my team out of the Raft,” Steve cuts in, mentioning Avengers-related things casually, no lead-in or explanation, like he always does. His hands are shoved in the pockets of the dark wash jeans Bucky bought him, and he’s sporting a violet t-shirt with a comic book rendering of Clint Barton on it, “Hawkeye” declared in big, magenta letters. It’s actually hilarious, but Bucky can’t spare a thought for that right now. “I went to the hospital to, um, stitch myself up, and Bucky found me. He offered to let me stay here until…”

“Until everything gets sorted out, yeah,” Bucky finishes.

Becca has one eyebrow raised, turning her head to look at both of them in turn. She blinks a few times. “And you’re…not dating?”

Bucky really wishes she would change the fucking subject.

“Er—no,” Steve responds, rubbing at the back of his neck. Bucky sees Steve’s eyes flick to the closed sketchbook still lying on the couch, and his heart picks up a little.

“Well, fuck _me_,” Becca says, running a hand down her face.

“Becks, you really can’t tell anyone he’s here. It’ll put him in a lot of danger—”

“It’ll put _you _in a lot of danger,” Steve inserts, and there goes Bucky’s heart again.

“It’ll put us both in a lot of danger,” Bucky amends, but Becca’s already nodding.

“No, sure, of course I won’t, but _damn_, big brother. You’re hiding Captain America in your Brooklyn apartment. Jesus.”

“Yeah,” Bucky huffs a small laugh. “It takes some getting used to.”

“So, that was your sister,” Steve says as Bucky shuts the door behind her three hours later. She had insisted on opening a bottle of wine, and Bucky had decided to partake too, because the adrenaline that had coursed through his veins when he’d heard Becca’s key in the lock had finally petered out and he felt raw and shaky. They finished the bottle, which led to another bottle, which led to them bugging Steve to regale them with tales of the Avengers. He’d told them about the only time anyone had ever gotten the drop on Black Widow, which involved some vodka, an 80s rock playlist, a competitive round of Twister, and Hawkeye sneaking around in the air ducts. He’d laughed along with them while disclosing that Falcon—_Sam_, Steve had called him affectionately—had fallen on his face the first few times he’d tried out his wings. He confessed that Tony Stark blew up the entire 33rd floor of Avengers Tower once while trying to develop nanotech, and Bucky had begged him to draw them a sketch of what Tony looked like without the eyebrows he’d singed off. 

Becca had promised over and over again not to tell anyone about Steve, and Bucky had finally sent her away with cab fare back to her apartment in Bed Stuy.

“Yeah, _God_, I’m sorry, Steve,” Bucky responds, pouring himself another glass of wine. He offers one to Steve, who shakes his head for the hundredth time that night. “You don’t drink?”

“Buck, you don’t have to keep apologizing. If you trust her, I trust her,” Steve says, and his tone is light. Bucky feels warmer with it. “And I used to drink, but it doesn’t do me a lot of good anymore. I can’t get drunk.”

Bucky wavers, sloshing some wine onto the coffee table. “That fucking sucks.”

Steve laughs, patting the couch beside him, reaching a hand out to take the glass of wine from Bucky as Bucky stumbles forward. “You’re tellin’ me, pal.”

Bucky settles himself onto the couch, legs crossed underneath him, and takes his glass back from Steve. He feels tingly and warm, and he can sense Steve’s eyes on him. He knows there’s something he wants to ask Steve, but he can’t remember what it is.

“Is she your only sibling?” Steve asks.

“Mm? Oh, yeah. It’s just me, her, and Mom. Mom lives in Indiana, where we were born. Dad left when Becca was two, and Mom got transferred here for work, so we grew up in Brooklyn.”

“I’m sorry about your dad. Do you miss him?” 

Bucky considers it. “Not really. It’s been so long that I can’t even picture his face anymore.”

Steve nods like that’s something he really understands, and Bucky feels a surge of sorrow sweep over him, looking at Steve, whose face is drawn and pained, eyebrows furrowed, a deep line set between them. Suddenly Bucky wishes he could rub his thumb there, smooth it away. His hand itches to reach over, but he wills himself to resist, taking another sip of wine instead. “I guess you know what that’s like,” he says before he can stop himself.

“Sort of,” Steve allows, leaning back into the couch. “With the serum, I have a photographic memory, so I can’t forget faces. It’s the smaller stuff I have trouble remembering, like the way Dum Dum laughed, or how Peggy’s voice sounded when she hummed a tune under her breath when she thought no one could hear her.”

A tight knot forms in Bucky’s throat against his will. “Peggy?”

“Yeah, she was…well, she was the first person to really see me, you know? Besides Dr. Erskine, and Ma. Before the serum.”

“First love?” Bucky guesses, noticing his voice is an octave higher than usual. He sips his wine again.

“Something like that,” Steve says, a small smile on his face. “She was smart as a whip, and not afraid to call me out on my shit. She actually shot at me once, when I was being an idiot,” he recalls, laughing, though the thought of Steve getting shot at is supremely unfunny to Bucky, and his gut twists. Steve seems unbothered by it, though, and he keeps talking. “We didn’t have a lot of time together, in the end. I feel like we’d just started to really get to know each other when I went in the ice.” Bucky flinches. He can’t stand the thought of Steve underwater, slowly freezing to near-death. “She went on to found S.H.I.E.L.D., actually.”

“Sounds like she was a great woman,” Bucky says, meaning it to sound genuine. He figures it’s true, because anyone worthy of Steve’s affection has to be pretty damn great. And if that’s jealousy coiling in his gut, then he can’t really help it. He takes a chunk of his hair in his flesh hand, twisting it around his index finger.

“Was...is,” Steve says, biting his cheek, eyeing Bucky with some indistinguishable look as Bucky twirls his hair.

Oh. “_Oh_, she’s—”

“Still alive, yeah. She’s in a nursing home in D.C.”

“Have you seen her?”

“I visit her every now and then. She’s still got that charm, you know?”

“Sure,” Bucky says, because he doesn’t know what else to say, and he lets his hair fall to his shoulder, clenching his hand into a fist in his lap. “Do you…regret it? Not being able to be with her?” There, he asked. _Rip off the band-aid, Steve, go ahead. Tell me she’s the only person you’ll ever love._

Steve licks his lips, which is patently unfair. Bucky downs the rest of his glass. “I did, for a while, right after I woke up,” Steve admits, frowning slightly. “To me, it had just been yesterday that I’d seen her and promised her a dance. It was hard to accept that seventy years had passed for her, for the world. But time finally passed for me too, you know?” he says, shrugging. The far-away look in his eyes is gone, and he’s smiling at Bucky. “She’s had a good life. Husband, kids. She seems happy, and that’s all I want for her. I have to find my own happiness,” he finishes, and Bucky doesn’t miss the way Steve’s eyes flick to Bucky’s face and back down to his lap.

Bucky suddenly remembers something. “You drew all those pictures of me,” he says, voice steady, fueled by too much wine. Bucky knows he does this sometimes, steamrolls into something, barreling right passed tact, but he can’t help himself.

Steve grimaces, ducking his head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…I just—” and it’s the first time Bucky has seen Steve this flustered, which makes Bucky’s heart quicken. “Um, I like drawing people, and you’re the only person I’m ever around,” he explains. Bucky considers this for a second. It sounds plausible, and his heart tightens unhappily. _But, wait a minute_, his mind supplies, _didn’t he mention a photographic memory? He could draw anyone. It doesn’t make sense._ Hmm.

If he can draw anyone, but he’s drawing Bucky, over and over and over again…

“Okay, Stevie, I believe you,” he sing-songs, noting the way Steve flushes at the nickname. Bucky isn’t even sure where it came from, letting his wine-drunk brain handle the situation.

“What, you think it means something?” Steve challenges, and Bucky can’t help but laugh, because yeah, this he knows about Steve. He doesn’t back down.

“You’re a little shit, you know that?” Bucky says, leaning forward to punch Steve in the arm. Steve dodges it easily, catching Bucky’s wrist in his adept fingers. Bucky’s skin warms with the contact because Steve is a goddamn furnace, radiating heat and light like no one Bucky has ever met.

“So I’ve been told,” Steve allows, not moving his hand from Bucky’s wrist.

“So does it?”

“What?”

“Mean something?” Bucky murmurs, trying not to sound hopeful.

Steve runs his tongue over his lips again, his eyes flicking to Bucky’s mouth. Bucky’s leaning in unwittingly, abruptly finding himself closer to Steve than he usually allows himself to get. Their faces are a few inches apart, and Bucky tugs his lower lip in between his teeth, worrying at it. It gets Steve’s attention, his eyes dragging to Bucky’s mouth again. Is it just Bucky, or is Steve breathing a little fast?

“Buck,” Steve cautions, allowing his thumb to move back and forth against Bucky’s wrist, the friction sending goosebumps up Bucky’s arm. He’s not sure anyone’s ever affected him like this, their only point of contact Steve’s fingers on his wrist, but it’s sending pleasure spooling deep in his belly.

“Yeah?” he croaks out, prompting Steve to say something, _anything_ in the charged air between them.

Steve swallows, looking like he’s deciding something, and lets Bucky’s wrist go, leaning back a little. “You’re drunk,” he says.

Bucky scowls, already yearning for Steve’s fingers against his skin again. “I’m not that drunk.”

Steve shoots him a look and stands up, offering Bucky a hand. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“Thought you’d never ask, Rogers,” Bucky responds, grinning as he lets Steve pull him to his feet.

“Very funny,” Steve says, rolling his eyes and leading Bucky to his bedroom. Steve opens the door, flicks on the light, and eyes the room, shifting on his feet. Bucky wants so badly to wrap his arms around Steve, to nuzzle Steve’s neck, feel that pulse jumping against his cheek, but he knows when Steve Rogers decides something, there’s no turning back. His heart aches in his chest with everything left unsaid.

“Stay with me,” Bucky blurts out when Steve turns to leave. Steve sighs, turning to face Bucky again, a look on his face that Bucky can’t interpret.

“I can’t this time, Buck,” Steve whispers, but he moves forward and cups a hand around Bucky’s jaw. Bucky feels Steve tugging him in, and his heart jumps when Steve presses his lips to Bucky’s forehead. It’s brief, too brief, and Steve is stepping back again, retreating from the room and shutting the door, leaving Bucky colder than he can ever remember.

Bucky doesn’t recall a lot about that night the next morning, just that he feels a mild sense of embarrassment lingering when he enters the kitchen and Steve passes him his coffee mug without looking at him.

“How ya feelin’, champ?” Steve asks lightly, pushing the scrambling eggs around the pan.

“Ugh,” Bucky groans, taking a sip of coffee.

Steve laughs a little, glances at Bucky and back down to the eggs. “Go sit. I’ll bring you breakfast when it’s ready.”

They’re eating breakfast quietly, the news on in the background, and Bucky doesn’t miss the way Steve keeps shooting him furtive glances out of the corner of his eye.

Bucky sets his empty plate down on the coffee table and turns toward Steve. “All right, what did drunk Bucky do? Do I need to kick his ass?”

Steve laughs and bites his lower lip, and he’s about to respond when his eyes shoot to the TV. Bucky hasn’t been paying any attention to whatever new awful thing is happening in the world. These days, it’s a lot of speculation about who’s going to succeed Obama as President. He can’t stand the idea that it might be Donald Trump—the thought makes him sick, so he doesn’t like watching the news. Steve insists on it, though.

Steve’s eyes are hard as he fumbles for the remote and turns the volume up.

There’s a shaky video, obviously taken on a phone, that shows people running and screaming, and over their head looms something that looks robotic from its face to its feet, silver and muscular, a sage green cape furling in the air, its hood up. There are some explosions off-screen, and a silver SUV rolls over a few times until its momentum is stopped when it crashes into a nearby building, glass shattering around it. The video pans out, and it’s obvious that it’s Manhattan.

“_We’re not sure yet what we’re seeing, but if you’re in Manhattan, you should get to a safe place inside_,” the newscaster is warning over the video that’s playing on a loop. Bucky hadn’t realized before, but he’s trembling.

Steve has already gotten to his feet and is moving toward Bucky’s bedroom. “Bucky, where’s my suit?”

Bucky answers without thinking. “In the closet.”

He’s not sure how long it is, probably just minutes, when Steve reemerges into the living room, decked in his dark blue Captain America suit, bullet hole and all. Bucky hadn’t been thinking, had just been watching the various news reports roll in, more videos of the green-caped robot-looking guy wreaking havoc on the city, but when Steve reappears, his mind kicks back into gear. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demands, standing to move in between Steve and the front door.

Steve narrows his eyes, looking down at himself like it’s obvious. “I have to go,” he says, gesturing to the TV.

“Like hell you do,” Bucky growls. “You’re a wanted fugitive. You can’t just go—”

“Actually, I can,” Steve interrupts. “I didn’t sign the Accords, and who knows when they’ll get it together long enough to send anyone in to stop this guy.”

“They’ll arrest you, Steve,” Bucky reminds him.

“Not before I save those people.”

“You don’t even have your fucking _shield_—”

“I don’t need it,” Steve says, pushing passed Bucky. He’s already to the front door when Bucky catches up, tugging at Steve’s wrist. Steve turns, his eyes bluer than Bucky’s ever seen, pupils pinpointed.

“What you don’t need is to be a fucking martyr!” Bucky yells at him, his emotions suddenly exploding out of him, which he should expect, bottling them up all the time. His voice is raw and he hates it. “When are you going to stop sacrificing yourself for everyone else, Steve, huh?” Steve’s jaw tightens, and his eyebrows knit together in an expression Bucky doesn’t recognize. 

Steve blinks, then sighs heavily, the answer coming to him like he may have never thought of it before, and it’s terrible, but it’s true. “Never,” he answers simply.

To Bucky, that’s unacceptable. He doesn’t want that to be true, can’t _let _it be true, can’t let Steve out the fucking front door just to be handcuffed and shoved into a cell for the rest of his life, or worse. The thought makes him sick to his stomach. “You’ll have to go through me,” he says, planting himself again between Steve and the front door, and Bucky _knows _it’s ridiculous because he stands no chance against Steve, but he has to do _something_.

“Come on, Bucky, get out of the way.”

“Make me.”

“You know I can,” Steve warns, low and menacing, and Bucky should probably be afraid, and maybe even kind of turned on, but he can’t spare any brain space for those emotions.

“Do it, then!” he challenges.

Bad move.

Steve puts a hand on either of Bucky’s upper arms and hauls him up, turning him around so Steve’s back is to the front door and Bucky is no longer in the way. If he weren’t so angry, he’d be impressed. Steve cocks an eyebrow at him.

Bucky can’t give up, though. If he can’t stop him physically, he has to do something else. He has to. It’s for Steve’s own good. “They don’t love you, Steve,” he snarls. “They’re scared of you. They don’t want your help, so don’t fucking give it to them!”

Steve flinches, but he recovers quickly. “I don’t care.”

Time to come up with something better, Bucky thinks. He flounders for a second, reaching for something, anything, and blurts out, “I lost my arm because of you.”

Steve reels back like he’s been slapped, pressing his back to the door. Bucky feels like a hook is digging into his chest, buried deep in his ribs, piercing his heart and flaying it wide open. “Wh—what?” Steve whispers.

Bucky doesn’t actually believe anything he’s about to say, but he knows he has to say it, because he’ll do anything to stop Steve from leaving. Whatever it takes. Because deep down, he’s a selfish asshole, and he needs Steve to stay here, in his apartment, where he’s safe, where no one is gunning for his freedom, his life. Where he can’t get hurt by robotic villains or alien armies or the goddamn United States government.

“During the Battle of New York,” Bucky starts, somehow managing to get the words out against his tightening throat. “I was hiding behind a taxi, probably the only person on the street for miles, but when it all started, I couldn’t…I thought I could help. I got my gun and I was going to get to the top of the tallest building nearby, but—” he clears his throat. Steve is absolutely frozen against the front door, and Bucky realizes he’s never seen anyone so still in his life. “Anyway, one of you sent some Chitauri flying in my direction, I don’t know who but—I got shoved between a building and the taxi. I was there for hours before someone found me. They couldn’t save it,” he says, lifting his left shoulder. “I was in the hospital for months.”

Steve’s lips are parted, eyes swimming, and Bucky feels heat rising to his face when a tear rolls down Steve’s cheek.

Bucky thinks he can hear his own heart breaking, because he knows it’s not Steve’s fault, even if Steve had been the one to actually bring those particular Chitauri raining down. Bucky knows he’d been reckless and impulsive to assume the Avengers had needed his help, and beyond that—he’s not entirely sure he had been trapped behind that taxi. It’s a secret he’d long since dug a grave for, a secret he’d whispered six feet deep and buried beneath years of lies and excuses, because admitting that he’d wanted to die right there on that sidewalk pinned between an ugly yellow cab and nondescript, gray concrete while aliens poured from a wormhole in the sky was nothing short of humiliating. He’s ashamed, the echoes of him begging the doctors not to save him, to expend their efforts on the people who actually wanted to live haunt him even in his sleep. But Bucky says none of this. “That’s what you do. That’s what you all do,” he croaks out, tears hot down his own cheeks now. “You hurt people.”

He hadn’t been prepared for the looks flitting across Steve’s face—shock, hurt, betrayal—and it’s eating Bucky alive that he’s the cause of it. All he wants is to apologize, to take it back, to press his lips to Steve’s and beg forgiveness into his mouth. His whole body aches with it, the lie heavy on his tongue. 

Bucky isn’t sure how long they stand there, air thick around them, before Steve finally manages a reply. “Collateral damage,” Steve whispers, more to himself than Bucky, and then, “I’m so sorry, Bucky.” He reaches out as if to wipe the tear tracks from Bucky’s face, but he stops himself and lets his hand fall to his side. “You won’t—” his voice catches, “—ever have to see me again. I promise you that.”

It’s the last thing Bucky had wanted, though he figures he should have expected it. All he had wanted was to stop Steve from going, to make Steve think twice about his heroics, not because he hurts people, but because _Steve _could get hurt. But Steve, selfless, beautiful, righteous Steve, will never think about his own safety before others’.

“I have to help these people,” he says, gesturing to the TV. “I’m sorry. I’m—I’m so sorry,” he says, wiping the back of his sleeve against his cheek. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I can’t ever repay you, especially—” he chokes against the words, “—now that—”

“Steve—” Bucky starts, because now that he sees what’s happening to Steve, he can’t let him keep thinking that it’s his fault, but Steve turns away, won’t meet Bucky’s eyes as he pulls the door open.

Steve turns one more time, eyeing Bucky with his lip tucked between his teeth, and he looks like he’s about to say something else, like his body wants him to move toward Bucky, but he doesn’t. He turns away, whispering “I’m sorry” as he goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, I'm really sorry about this one.


	6. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for some violence and depression.

Bucky’s not sure how he gets through the next second, or minute, or hour. He aches like a bruise, wanting to take back everything he’d said, wanting to erase the mental image of Steve looking at him like he’d never quite seen him before, wanting to comfort Steve and also ask him how the hell he believed a word Bucky had said. He’d believed it so quickly, like it was always there in the back of his head, and _how_? How could Steve think that about himself?

Bucky watches the news, sees the moment Steve arrives at about twenty different camera angles, Bucky’s heart in his throat. He’s not sure what Steve can really do, down that far on the ground when the other guy is flying above him, but he doesn’t have to wonder long. A red and gold streak zips into the picture, and it’s got something round and heavy in its hands as it smashes into the flying villain. The villain goes ricocheting into a nearby building, its cement support beams crunching under his weight. He seems temporarily subdued, and Bucky sees who he assumes to be Iron Man swoop down onto the street where Steve is herding people to relative safety, down the steps to a nearby subway station. Iron Man passes the round, heavy-looking thing to Steve, and it winks in the camera lens—red, blue, and silver. Steve’s shield. Bucky feels a surge of relief run through him just as his phone rings, vibrating against his thigh. He jumps, digging the phone out of the front pocket of his jeans, and swipes it to answer.

He doesn’t even say anything, just hears his sister’s frantic voice. “Bucky, oh my god!”

“Are you okay?” he manages. His fear has been pulsating through him like a livewire, but he’s been inching it away, numbing himself to anything but what’s happening on the TV screen. At Becca’s voice, though, it breaks down the dam he’d built to keep it at bay, and the fear washes over him. He’s drowning with it.

“I was just down the street when it started,” she starts, and now Bucky’s practically humming with terror. “I’m safe now, though!” she adds. “Steve saved me, actually.“

In a day full of fucked-up things, Bucky thinks this might be the craziest thing he’s heard yet.

“Steve—_what_?”

“God, Bucky, it reminds me of what happened to you.” She’s crying now, and Bucky’s heart is plummeting to his stomach. He can’t say anything. He can’t think, he can’t breathe, he can’t… “This car was just coming right at me, and Steve, he—_God_, oh my _God_, he fucking jumped in front of it! He stopped it, I swear to God, with his bare fucking hands, Bucky! He didn’t even flinch. I didn’t even see him coming! He was just—_there_, and then he picked me up and carried me a couple of blocks—oh my _God_, he can run so fucking _fast_—and then he told me to run, so I did, and he went after that guy!”

Bucky has sunk to his knees, his phone clutched in his shaking hand. He needs to say something, but his throat is so dry he doesn’t know if he can. He tries anyway. “Where are you now?”

“I’m coming there,” Becca says, and he notices she sounds winded. “I’m just down the block.”

“Stay on the phone with me until you get here,” he orders.

She does, and Bucky doesn’t breathe again until she’s walking in the front door, stumbling into Bucky’s arms. He runs his hands through her hair, patting her back, and she’s sobbing into his shoulder. They stand that way for a minute until she pulls away, tugging him down onto the couch.

The fight has continued in the background. The villain’s suit seems to work the same way Iron Man’s does because the blows that Iron Man is dealing him in the air are landing without much damage. Suddenly, the shield flies at the villain’s head, hitting him in the neck and incapacitating him enough that he falls to the ground. The temporary weakness allows Steve to throw his body on top of him, the two rolling across the pavement and delivering blows back and forth. Iron Man lands nearby, pulling Steve off the man and shooting a repulsor beam from his gauntlet. The man deflects with his own metal arm, getting to his feet. Steve flings his shield at the man again, bringing him to his knees. The shield returns to Steve’s arm just as Iron Man shoots at the villain again. Steve and Iron Man take turns with the shield, throwing it back and forth between blows, and the villain is putting up a fight, managing to get some hard punches in between them. It doesn’t last long, though, and another person in a metal suit of armor—_Colonel Rhodes, War Machine_, Bucky’s mind provides—enters the fray, and the three of them take down the villain in another few seconds. And just like that, a parade of cop cars appear, S.W.A.T. vans screeching to a halt, men in black tactical gear emerging with AK-47s, all of them taking aim at the three superheroes and one supervillain on his knees, arms behind his back in some enhanced kind of handcuffs War Machine had brought with him.

The feed cuts off to the newscasters, who are assuring them that everyone is safe now.

Bucky barely makes it to the bathroom before he vomits.

Bucky hasn’t slept or showered in three days. He’s only eaten because Becca had forced him to, which is probably good, because not eating and not sleeping is bad for your body. Probably. Not that Bucky cares.

Becca decides to stay with him at his apartment for a while, and she calls into work for him, explaining his need to take some time off due to PTSD brought on by the attack. It’s not a lie.

Bucky does find himself enjoying one thing three days after the attack: coffee, though that small victory is dulled by the unceremonious way Becca interrupts it by slapping a paper down between them on the dining room table. On it is a picture of Steve (in full Captain America regalia) and Tony Stark (suited up as Iron Man with his faceplate open) plastered on the front page of the New York Times below a headline that reads _CAPTAIN AMERICA, IRON MAN ARRESTED FOR VIOLATING SOKOVIA ACCORDS_.

“This is bullshit,” she says, sitting down beside Bucky and sliding her chair forward. “They saved people’s lives and this is the thanks they get.”

Bucky swallows, trying to prevent the toast Becca had fed him that morning from coming back up. “Yeah,” is all he can say. He flips the paper over so the picture of Steve is face-down. Becca looks up at him, her pale blue eyes concerned.

“You need to shower.”

Bucky scoffs, standing with his coffee cup in hand, and retreating to the couch in the living room. Becca follows after him.

“You’ll see him again,” she says. Bucky’s not surprised that she cuts right down to the heart of the thing. She’s always had an uncanny ability to know what people are thinking.

“Right,” he deadpans. “I’m sure I’ll be right there at the top of his visitor’s list.” Becca had finally pried the whole story from Bucky, so she knows. She knows what Bucky had said to Steve. The thought twists Bucky’s stomach, just like it had ever since Steve had walked out his front door.

“You could always apologize, explain,” Becca suggests. 

Bucky actually laughs. “You didn’t see his face, Becca.”

“He’ll understand,” she assures him, running a hand down his back. He knows she’s trying to comfort him, but he flinches underneath her touch. It feels strange to be touched by anyone but Steve, and now that he knows he’ll never touch Steve again, it makes him feel worse. Becca, being the saint she is, changes the subject, brandishing the newspaper that she’d collected from the dining room table and shoving it under Bucky’s nose. “He’s getting a trial.”

“I’m sure it’ll be a real fair one,” he says, pushing the paper away. He can’t look at Steve’s face again, even beneath that stupid cowl.

“Never underestimate public opinion,” she says.

Bucky huffs and takes another sip of his coffee.

The nausea never quite lets up.

Bucky’s doing fine.

Two weeks pass. He finally convinces Becca that he’s doing better and she doesn’t need to stay with him anymore. He goes back to work after he uses up all the sick time he dares to use. He trudges through his workdays on autopilot, forgetting to rub lotion on his flesh hand after washing it a hundred times a day, his skin becoming dry and flaky. He spills coffee down his scrub top and forgets to wash it. He’s back to showering semi-regularly because he sets a timer on his phone to remind himself to do it. He skips lunch, only barely remembering to eat dinner when Becca texts him to ask what he’s eaten that day. He doesn’t bother to shave.

But he’s doing _fine_. Really. He’s doing fine.

The trials are expedited and televised, and Becca insists on coming over to watch. 

Steve’s trial is first.

Bucky is not prepared for the way his heart plummets when he sees Steve on screen. He is dressed in a neatly-pressed dark gray suit with a white button-down and a sleek blue tie that matches his eyes. He has shaved his beard and cut his hair, the blond strands slicked back off of his forehead. He looks thinner, but the way he holds himself, shoulders back, the confident Captain America air he exudes, is powerful and heartbreaking in equal measure. He’s devastating.

He answers questions in that same gravelly voice, the “yes ma’am” and “no ma’am” endearing even through the TV screen. His lawyer is some hotshot with dark curly hair, determined eyes, and a strong jaw to match the crisp lines of his black suit, and he commands the room with impressive authority. Bucky never hears much of the trial, though, with his heart drumming in his ears.

When the day’s proceedings are over, the newscasters focus on the crowds looming outside the D.C. courtroom. They are abundant and thunderous, with signs that read “FREE CAP,” “OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN,” and “CAP DIDN’T GET ICED FOR THIS SHIT,” which Bucky finds both hilarious and horrifying. Most people in the crowd are dressed in various degrees of Captain America suits or merchandise, but some are wearing other Avenger costumes. If the real Avengers are somewhere in the crowd, it’s likely no one would ever know.

On the second day, the crowd balloons to over one million, rivaling the massive number of people who attended Obama’s inauguration. It is absolutely insane to see the streets flooded with people supporting Steve—or supporting Captain America, as the case may be, and Bucky is overwhelmed by it. Becca points out that this is a good thing.

The trial takes a week, and Bucky barely sleeps. He’s red-eyed and heavy-lidded when they finally announce that Steve Rogers is free pending his resignation as Captain America.

Bucky is certain he won’t resign, that he will spend the rest of his considerably long life behind bars because he’s stubborn.

The next day, the headlines read “CAPTAIN AMERICA DROPS HIS SHIELD, RELEASED FROM CUSTODY” and “FORCED INTO RETIREMENT: CAPTAIN AMERICA FREED.”

Bucky sleeps for two days straight.

Several weeks later, Tony Stark gets the same deal.

Three months after Steve left, Bucky still hasn’t picked up the sketchbook.

He can’t bring himself to put his fingers where Steve’s had been, to let his eyes rake over the thick pages, to see himself in gray and white again, to remember the hazy flash of _does it mean something_ and the way Steve had looked at him with so much pity the last time he’d seen him.

So instead, it sits on his coffee table, gathering dust.

Becca had reached for it once, and Bucky had yelped in protest, wrenching her arm back. She had raised an eyebrow at him but never commented on it. Thank fuck for that, because Bucky can’t even begin to explain it.

For the most part, though, Bucky has gone on with his life. His heart still stings and he feels like an open wound, but he makes an effort anyway. He even goes out with his friends sometimes, but he feels like an outsider. Elizabeth and Nick drive in from Jersey, share fried pickles and clink their whiskey shots together while they tell Bucky stories about work, buying a new car, finally getting rid those old sheds the previous homeowners had built in their backyard. Meredith and Dave talk about getting another German Shepherd, which Bucky thinks is crazy in their tiny brownstone, and invite him over for dinner on Labor Day.

He tries to act normal, tries to push aside his feelings, but in the end, he still comes home to that damn sketchbook on his coffee table. 

Sometimes he just stares at it, willing it to disappear.

Sometimes he ignores it completely.

Sometimes he reaches for it, but then thinks of the way his fingerprints will mar the rough, black cover amidst the dust, and that gets him thinking about the deft fingers that last touched it, and he forces himself to leave it be.


	7. King of My Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE, please heed the tags for violence and suicidal thoughts/ideation. That tag comes to light in this chapter.
> 
> There MAY also be some brief explicit sexual content...

He tries not to keep up with what Steve is doing, but it’s pretty hard when it’s blasted all over social media. He gathers that Steve has moved into Avengers Tower, which surprises him, but he and Tony must have made up. The next big headline is that Black Widow and Falcon have both retired as well and moved into the Tower with their former coworkers. He guesses they couldn’t have run from the government forever.

The buzz around the retirement of the Avengers dies down after a while, though. The only updates he sees are grainy photos on Twitter of Steve in a Starbucks, people speculating wildly about how Captain America takes his coffee. Bucky knows it’s with three Splenda and no creamer, and that he prefers iced coffee on hot days, but that’s neither here nor there.

Summer is slowly retracting her claws from the city, giving up her purchase as Fall starts to settle around them in earnest, with reds and yellows and oranges and a steady, crisp breeze. It’s Bucky’s favorite time of year. On October 1st, he gets out all of his Halloween decorations, stringing orange lights into his windows and moving the cactus, picture frame, and vase off of his electric fireplace, replacing them with porcelain pumpkins and a plastic skull. He lingers there, glancing at the Captain America comic hung above it. It’s been there so long that he doesn’t notice it most of the time, and his heart squeezes in his chest as he registers it.

He turns around then, facing the sketchbook, which has, like the comic, become such a part of his surroundings that he pays it no attention. One time he’d kicked it with his heel when he propped his foot up on the coffee table, and he’d had a mild panic attack, so he’d bought a fluffy teal ottoman that matched exactly nothing in his apartment, but it was soft and it served a purpose, and he hadn’t thought about the sketchbook since.

But now he’s looking at it, and he feels something pricking at him, a new determination settling around his ears. He takes a deep breath, crosses the living room, and plucks the sketchbook from the table, wiping the dust from the cover with his flesh hand.

He’s not sure he’s ready for this, but when he makes a decision, it’s all steamrolling and barreling through, so he flips the sketchbook open.

It isn’t any easier, seeing himself like this again, through Steve’s eyes. He traces the lines of his own face, accidentally smudging the charcoal. His heart crawls into his throat, really and truly settling in there, and he can’t breathe around it.

Fuck.

Bucky shuts the sketchbook, frowning, an idea forming in his head. A stupid, idiotic, ridiculous idea, but once it’s there—well. He grabs his keys from the coffee table and locks the door behind him, hands only shaking a little.

If he’d thought the subway ride into Manhattan would calm his nerves or give him enough time to change his mind, he’d been wrong. His knee bounces the whole ride and he worries his bottom lip so much it hurts. When he gets off on his stop and walks toward the behemoth that is Avengers Tower, he clutches the sketchbook to his chest, feeling cold even underneath the emerald sweater and leather jacket, though the weather outside is only just this side of chilly.

The glass doors slide open and he rushes in, making his way up to the white marble countertop, behind which sits the receptionist. She’s pretty, striking, even, strawberry blonde hair in waves down to her shoulders. She’s typing away, her blue eyes studying the computer screen in front of her. Bucky coughs to get her attention, and she glances up, raising one blonde eyebrow.

“Can I help you?” she asks as if she’s asked the question a thousand times. She probably has.

“I’m here to see Steve,” he blurts out. Her other eyebrow joins the first, climbing up her forehead. “Um, Rogers,” he adds. “Cap—Captain Rogers.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

Jesus Christ. He really had not thought this through. Of course she wasn’t going to let some random person just waltz in and demand to see Captain America. What had he been thinking?

“N—no,” he stammers, grip tightening on the sketchbook. “I’m—we’re—” he doesn’t even know what to say. Friends? Ex-friends? Former roommates? _I’m kind of in love with the guy, but I haven’t talked to him or seen him almost four months and I just really fucking need to see him, lady, so could you please_—

“Sergeant Barnes,” a smooth voice lilts, cutting off his increasingly frustrated inner monologue.

He whips around to see Black Widow stalking toward him. She’s clad in all black, just like she had been when she’d appeared in his apartment that day, her red hair pulled back in a long braid. Her face betrays nothing as she saunters up to the desk.

“Er,” is all Bucky can say.

“Natasha,” she reminds him. As if he didn’t know.

“Right, hi,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. Natasha’s eyes flick to the sketchbook and back to Bucky’s face.

“Are you here to see Cap?”

_No_, he thinks. _I’m here to see Steve_. “Yes,” he says.

“He’s clear,” Natasha says to the receptionist, turning on her heel and heading toward a set of elevators. When Bucky doesn’t follow, she turns her head back to him and raises an eyebrow. He runs a hand over his face. What the hell has he gotten himself into? He follows her onto the elevator.

“Ms. Romanov,” a nebulous voice says from above them as they start moving up. Bucky jumps.

“FRIDAY,” she says as if in explanation. Bucky must look confused, because she goes on. “It’s Tony’s A.I. She’s installed throughout the Tower. Used to be JARVIS, but then Tony and Bruce brought him to life, so,” she purses her lips. Bucky has no idea what she’s talking about. “Take us to Captain Rogers’s floor,” she says, not to Bucky.

“Yes ma’am,” the elevator replies.

They share an elevator to the 42nd floor, which Natasha tells him is Steve’s floor. Because apparently Steve has an entire floor to himself, which really shouldn’t surprise Bucky. Stark is one rich mother fucker.

Bucky is so distracted by all the new information that he forgets to be nervous. The feeling overwhelms him, though, when the elevator doors ding open to a frankly massive space. He can only take in a large, white sectional before Natasha, smiling predatorially, shoves him out of the elevator. The doors shut behind him.

Bucky hears Steve before he sees him. “Natasha?” Steve’s voice is so familiar, so achingly low and gruff that Bucky’s heart trips as Steve rounds a corner into the room and stops, dropping the coffee cup in his hand.

The cup, a boring, cream-colored one, shatters on the hardwood floor. Bucky cringes, thinking the floor probably has a mark on it now, and wouldn’t that be a shame, to have something marring that flawless apartment, all whites and creams and muted grays?

Steve doesn’t even look down at the mess, the coffee black and sticky and splattered onto Steve’s brown boots. Bucky gets a good look at him for the first time. He’s wearing dark wash jeans that are a little tight and a navy blue Henley. He’s shaved his beard and doesn’t look worse for it—the smooth lines of his jaw visible, his lips pink and parted in surprise. His golden hair is slicked back with product, and Bucky wonders who’s been shopping for him, because _damn_. Not that Steve needs anyone to do him any favors, but he looks _good_.

“Hi,” Bucky manages. Steve blinks slowly, closing his mouth. Bucky tucks a stray strand of hair that has gotten loose from his messy bun behind his ear. Steve watches, licking his bottom lip. “I just—I wanted to bring you this,” he says lamely, sticking the notebook out into the air in front of him.

Steve moves forward, sidestepping the spilt coffee and broken shards of the coffee cup. He eyes the sketchbook, finally taking it without a word, glancing down at it and rubbing the spine with his thumb before setting it onto his own glass coffee table—the thought of it moving from Bucky’s to Steve’s is kind of ironic in a sad way. Steve glances back at Bucky, wearing that concerned look that brings a crease between his eyebrows. He says nothing.

Bucky doesn’t do awkward silence very well. “Right,” he says, trying to fill the space. “That’s—that’s all, I just wanted to bring you your sketchbook. So I guess…yeah, I’ll…I’ll go now.” He turns, pressing the button for the elevator too hard than is strictly called for.

“Buck, what are you doing here?” Steve finally says as the elevator doors ping open. 

Bucky turns back, surprised to hear his name in Steve’s mouth. His nickname, that Steve had given him, that name that no one else calls him. He’d spent the better part of the last several months thinking he’d never hear it again. He’d also thought of all the things he would say if he ever got the chance. “Steve,” Bucky says, voice breaking as he steps toward Steve. Steve takes a minute step back, which feels like a knife in the gut. He doesn’t want to be anywhere near Bucky. Bucky can’t really blame him. “You have to know that I didn’t—I didn’t mean it. It wasn’t your fault.”

Steve’s brow furrows, his lips parting a little, but he says nothing.

“I don’t blame you,” Bucky continues, shoving his hands in his pockets and lowering his eyes to the floor because he can’t look at Steve’s face as he says it. “I was in a bad place when that happened.” He swallows against the bile rising in his throat. He’s never told anyone this before, and now he’s shoveling out all the dirt, digging it up with trembling hands. “I—I wanted to die.” Bucky still can’t look at Steve’s face, but he hears his voice hitch and watches Steve’s feet as he takes a step toward Bucky again. “I mean, I was hurt, yeah. I was pinned pretty good, but I never called out for help. I never even tried to free myself. I had untreated PTSD and depression and I felt so useless when I got out of the army and I just…I wanted to die there. I tried to die there. Never could bring myself to do it on my own, but I sure as hell didn’t fight it when it was being done for me.”

“_Bucky_—” Steve’s voice is so strangled that Bucky yearns to look at up him, can feel Steve reaching out, but he has to finish before Steve says anything.

“So yeah, it wasn’t your fault. I never blamed you, any of you. You save people, you all do. Fuck, you saved Becca,” he remembers. “You’ve saved the world so many times, _god_, you’ve saved _me_…” he starts to explain, but finds he can’t quite admit to that yet. He switches tactics. “What I said—I said it because—” he inhales, steeling himself, “—I’m selfish. I wanted you to stay. I couldn’t stand the thought of you getting hurt or leaving me. I was scared. It’s not an excuse, but, fuck, I was terrified, Steve. I thought I’d never see you again, and I’d say anything to keep that from happening. But I was wrong, I was so fucking wrong and selfish and I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t, don’t apologize, Buck,” Steve interrupts him. “I should be apologizing—”

“Stop, Steve, please. I just—I just wanted you to know that I didn’t mean any of it—"

“You were right, though,” Steve says, toeing the ground. Bucky finally drags his eyes back to Steve’s face, and his heart clenches at what he sees there—sorrow, guilt, loss. It’s dizzying in its intensity. “We do hurt people. You almost died—”

“I just told you that that was _intentional_,” Bucky snaps, and at that, Steve closes the gap between them faster than Bucky can track his movements. Steve’s arms find their way around Bucky, and Bucky lets himself be enveloped in Steve’s embrace, pressing his head to Steve’s shoulder, the heat leaving both of them. He knows Steve must feel the way his heart is campaigning to rip right out of his chest and find its way to Steve.

“I’m so sorry, Bucky, I’m so sorry,” Steve breathes into Bucky’s hair, one hand running up and down Bucky’s spine. 

“Stop blaming yourself,” Bucky says, pulling away slightly, tilting his head up a little to look at Steve. “Please, Steve. That’s what I came here to say. You can’t blame yourself, because I sure as hell don’t.”

Steve sighs, pressing his face to Bucky’s head again, brushing a soft kiss against Bucky’s temple, which sends a shiver down Bucky’s spine. He can feel Steve smiling slightly into his hair. “You didn’t just come here to bring me my sketchbook, did you?” 

Bucky allows the change in subject because his heart feels all tangled with everything he’s been trying to say. “You had to know I didn’t,” he says.

“I don’t like to make assumptions.”

“Some things you have to just know, Steve.”

“You’re one to talk,” Steve says, breaking the hug and pulling back, letting his hands fall to his sides. Bucky raises an eyebrow because he’s not sure what Steve’s getting at. Steve sighs, scrubbing a hand over his clean-shaven face and taking a deep breath. “You asked me a question,” he starts, licking his bottom lip and jutting his chin out like he does when he’s determined to do something. “And the answer is—it did.” He says it in the small space between them like a secret, all soft and low.

Bucky blinks, confused, because he doesn’t have a clue what Steve’s talking about. “What?”

“It did—mean something,” Steve explains, his eyes now firmly on Bucky’s mouth. “The sketches of you.”

Oh.

_Oh_.

Bucky’s heart feels like it might explode, but he has to hear it, has to hear Steve say it, _needs _confirmation, because…because it can’t be what Steve’s suggesting, can it? “What did it mean?” Bucky breathes finally.

“It meant—” Steve starts. He flinches, groans a little, clearly frustrated. “It _means_—" Steve begins again, but before he can finish, he surges forward, pressing an urgent kiss to Bucky’s lips.

Bucky stiffens while his heart speeds up to a pace that can’t possibly be compatible with life because _Steve is kissing him_. Bucky’s brain whites out at the edges, all sense pouring out of him. Everything is blank except Steve’s lips against his. It feels like eternity, and it’s not long enough.

Bucky hasn’t moved a muscle, and Steve leans back to look at Bucky with a question on his stupid, handsome face. What an idiot.

Because what Bucky can’t say is that now that Steve has kissed him, he’s never going to let him stop. Bucky closes the space between them, kissing Steve hard, bringing his hands to the back of Steve’s neck as Steve’s hands find Bucky too, one cupping his jaw as the other snakes into his hair. Bucky tips his head back, deepening the kiss, his lips parting and _fuck_. He licks at Steve’s bottom lip, tugging it between his teeth like he’s always wanted to do, and Steve _moans _into Bucky’s mouth, digging his fingers into Bucky’s messy bun and pulling just a little, and _god damn_, that feels good. 

They finally break apart, Steve leaning his forehead against Bucky’s and rubbing their noses together, chuckling against Bucky’s cheek.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for so long,” Steve admits, pressing another kiss to Bucky’s lips like he can’t stop himself, and that is just fine with Bucky, but it’s also completely unbelievable.

“You and me both, pal,” Bucky says, pulling back enough to see the way Steve looks now, lips kiss-wet from Bucky’s mouth, and Bucky wonders briefly if he’s dreaming. 

They’re both breathing fast, the air charged, and there’s so much more that needs to be said, but Bucky doesn’t want to handle any of that right now. All he wants are Steve’s lips against his and Steve’s hands in his hair forever. He chases Steve’s mouth with his, humming in pleasure, pressing his tongue slowly forward until Steve parts his lips. Steve tastes like coffee and sugar, his tongue hot, and it sends ripples of desire through Bucky, who’s already hard against the front of his jeans. As if on cue, Steve presses a leg between Bucky’s, the friction delicious and intoxicating, and Bucky keens in response, mouth open wide as Steve trails kisses down Bucky’s jaw and sinks his teeth into Bucky’s neck. Bucky cants his hips forward, rubbing himself against Steve’s leg, and Steve’s breath hitches in the back of his throat. Suddenly, Steve’s crowding Bucky against the closed elevator door, slamming his back into it hard, but Bucky doesn’t care, he’s wrapping one leg around Steve’s waist, gripping at Steve’s shoulders to get purchase, hips jerking forward to seek more friction, spilling constant blissful moans that climb up from his chest. Steve tugs Bucky’s earlobe into his mouth, breath hot in his ear as he grinds forward, his own erection evident against Bucky’s. “_Fuck_, Steve,” Bucky growls, digging his fingers into Steve’s back, slightly aware that his metal hand might actually bruise Steve’s skin.

“Bucky, _God_,” Steve mutters into the skin on Bucky’s neck, goosebumps erupting in the wake of his breath. One of his hands is fisted in Bucky’s hair. “Your hair drives me fucking crazy, Buck. It’s so beautiful. I don’t know how I spent all that time with you and never got my hands in it,” he says, his other hand making its way into Bucky’s hair too, and he tugs with both hands, tipping Bucky’s head back and nipping at Bucky’s jaw. Bucky feels dizzy and overstimulated and not fucking close enough to Steve. He needs his hands on Steve’s bare skin, he needs to trace every inch of Steve’s body with both flesh and metal, the thought alone ripping through any resolve he has left.

“Steve, _please_,” Bucky whines, not even sure what he’s asking for, dropping his head against Steve’s chest and rolling his hips forward, eliciting another one of those hedonistic moans from the back of Steve’s throat, and _fuck_, Bucky can do that to him, and it’s so, so, so satisfying.

But Steve pulls away abruptly, putting space between them, and Bucky whimpers at the loss. He reaches out for Steve, who’s grinning now, pupils blown black and dick hard against his jeans. “Come back,” Bucky pleads, stepping forward and rucking up Steve’s shirt and pressing his fingertips to Steve’s skin, but Steve gently pulls Bucky’s hands down again, laughing.

“I could do this all day, but we should…slow down,” Steve suggests, though he looks like he wants to do anything but. Bucky frowns. He knows Steve is right, but it’s really hard to let his brain do the talking when his dick has other ideas. He just wants to shove Steve backward onto the couch and crawl on top of him, divest him of that shirt and take a nipple in between his teeth and see what kind of reaction that would get him. He absent-mindedly frees a hand from Steve’s and runs it over his erection, which _fuck_, feels pretty good, and he can’t bite back the moan that escapes past his lips.

Steve raises an eyebrow at Bucky and laughs. Bucky pouts in response. “Don’t judge, Rogers.”

“Come on, Buck, let’s sit.” Bucky lets himself be dragged to the couch, but he doesn’t let Steve get too far away from him. They sit with their thighs pressed together, far closer than Bucky had ever let them get back at his apartment. Steve still has one of Bucky’s hands in his own, his thumb moving across the back of Bucky’s hand. “I’m sorry I left,” Steve says eventually. “And I’m especially sorry I did it without doing this.” He leans in again and kisses Bucky softly. “I was going to, that morning, actually. I was going to tell you how much I…like you,” he blushes a little, but presses on. “I didn’t want to do it the night before because I wanted you to be clear-headed when I told you that I’ve had feelings for you since you bought me that sketchbook.”

“Since—_what_?” Bucky can’t believe it had been that long. “We could have been doing this—” he stops to kiss Steve, who smiles into his mouth, “—the whole time?”

“To be fair, I didn’t know how you felt about me.”

Bucky’s jaw drops a little. “Jesus Christ, Steve, you fucking idiot. I barely kept it together around you. How could you not have known?”

“I told you I don’t like to make assumptions,” Steve says, smiling. “But I’ve been told I can be a little oblivious,” he admits, huffing a laugh, kissing Bucky again like he can’t get enough. Bucky’s heart feels so full.

“No shit.” 

“I thought I was fairly obvious about how I felt about you too, though.” Steve reaches up to tangle his hand in Bucky’s hair again, and it’s not doing anything for Bucky’s still-hard dick. “Every time you touched your hair, I think my heart stopped.”

And yeah, Bucky thinks he knows what Steve means, because his heart is stuttering against his ribcage as he leans forward and presses his lips against Steve’s. The kiss turns heated again, Bucky dipping his tongue into Steve’s mouth and Steve gasping, and Bucky is about to say “fuck it” to Steve’s earlier suggestion of “slow down” by climbing on top of Steve, but they’re interrupted by the elevator dinging open.

“Cap, we gotta get going!” Falcon emerges into Steve’s apartment, dressed in black and red tactical gear, a pack strapped to his back and red goggles sitting on his head, ready to be pulled down over his eyes. He strolls forward, not looking around, one hand curled into a fist as he’s glaring down at it, tapping something onto the tech buried in the forearm of his suit. “Fury said he called you but you’re not answering, so they sent me down here to—” he stops as he looks up and takes in what he’s seeing.

Steve, inexplicably, is standing, though Bucky’s not sure when he’d gotten up. His hair is mussed up from Bucky’s hands, his lips reddened, a kiss-shaped bruise already fading against the pulse point in his neck. He flushes so pretty, Bucky thinks, when Steve’s skin pinkens down to the collar of his shirt.

Falcon’s hand drops to his side as he raises an eyebrow, smirking at both of them.

“Uh, Sam,” Steve says, running a hand through his hair to fix it. “This is Bucky. Bucky, Sam.” He gestures at both of them. 

Bucky stands as Falcon steps toward him, a hand extended. “Nice to finally meet you, man. Heard a lot about you.” His grin reveals a gap in his front teeth.

Bucky doesn’t miss Steve reddening further as he shakes Sam’s hand and he finds he has an intense desire to know exactly what Steve had told Sam about him, but the interruption and Sam’s outfit finally catch up to him. “What’s going on?”

Sam’s eyes dart to Steve, who shifts his weight nervously. “We found it,” is all Sam says.

Bucky frowns, turning to Steve. “Just need a second to put on the suit, Sam,” Steve replies. 

Sam nods, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth again. “Sure, Cap. Wheels up in thirty.” With that, he turns back to the elevator, boarding it again and waggling his fingers at Bucky with a grin. “See ya later, man!” he calls as the elevator doors close.

“You want to explain what the fuck’s going on, Steve?” Bucky growls, eyes narrowing.

“We got some intel about a Hydra base,” he starts.

“Who the hell is ‘_we_?’ I thought you were all retired!”

Steve slumps his shoulders, looking down at the ground. “S.H.I.E.L.D.’s been compromised. Hydra’s been infiltrating them for a while. We think there are some higher-ups in the government involved too. We can’t trust anyone, so we have to—we’ve got to take them down on our own,” Steve explains. “There won’t be any civilians hurt.”

“I’m not worried about civilians!” Bucky shouts. “I’m worried about _you_! Why don’t you understand that?”

Steve clenches his jaw, looking like he’s deciding something. After several moments, he says, “They’re trying to recreate the serum.”

“The—what?” Bucky asks, anger giving way to shock.

“The serum they used on me. Hydra is trying to recreate it, make an army of supersoldiers,” Steve explains, eyes cast down to the floor.

“To what end?”

“Mine,” Steve says, eyes dragging back up to meet Bucky’s. Bucky thinks his heart stops. “And the other Avengers, too, and it won’t stop there.”

“Let me guess,” Bucky says ruefully. “Global domination.”

Steve barks out a mirthless laugh and rests his hands on his hips, pacing the room. “Fury developed something when he was with S.H.I.E.L.D. in response to the attack on New York. Called it Project Insight.” Bucky doesn’t know where this is going, but he feels a chill creep up his spine. “The idea was national security. They have three huge flying machines—they call them helicarriers—programmed to proactively terminate any threats to the U.S.” 

“Proactively terminate?” Bucky echoes. “You mean…they want to kill people off before they’ve even committed a crime?”

Steve nods, turning to Bucky and shoving his hands in his pockets. “Remember when I said Hydra infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

It dawns on Bucky, and it feels like someone’s dunked him in ice water. “Hydra has access to these weapons. They can—”

“Eliminate any threat to their global takeover, yeah. Well, theoretically.”

“Theoretically? What’s stopping them?”

“Tony,” Steve says simply. “He found a way to jam the signal to the helicarriers. Even if Hydra can get them off the ground, they can’t get them linked to the satellites. Plus, they haven’t figured out the algorithm. They don’t know how to program them to target the people they want to target.”

“For now,” Bucky says.

“For now,” Steve agrees. 

“Where are these helicarriers?”

“D.C.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“But we just got intel on this Hydra operations base in—” Steve digs his phone out of his back pocket, glancing at the screen, “—Guntersville, Alabama.”

“_Alabama_?”

Steve shrugs, tucking his phone back in his pants. “Good a place as any, I guess, for an ops center. Anyway, we’ll create a diversion while Natasha hacks into their computers so we can figure out what their next step is, who all is involved, the big players. When we find out what we’re up against, we’ll make a plan, and then we’re going to D.C. We can’t risk them ever getting the helicarriers in the air.”

“Create a diversion?” Bucky asks, throaty and raw.

Steve grimaces, shrugging a little. “Punch our way in,” he translates. “Blow things up. The usual.”

Bucky feels a chill settling over him, but he knows he can’t stop Steve, and he knows what they’re doing is important—save-the-world important, as usual. “What are you going to do with the helicarriers? Hijack them?”

“Destroy them.”

“Subtle,” Bucky says, running a hand through his hair. “Christ, Steve. They’ll arrest you again. They’ll arrest all of you.”

“Not before we destroy those helicarriers,” Steve says. Bucky’s heart sinks, and Steve must see it in his face, because he takes a step closer and cups Bucky’s jaw in one of his strong hands. “We’re going to do our best not to get arrested, okay, Buck? But we _can’t _let Hydra—”

“I know,” Bucky cuts in, leaning into Steve and pressing his cheek to Steve’s chest. “Are you coming back here before D.C.?”

“Yeah, we’ve still got to plan out exactly how we’re going to do it without getting anyone who’s S.H.I.E.L.D. but not Hydra killed in the process. Plus, we’ve got a few more allies we’re calling in,” he says, smiling wickedly like he knows something no one else does.

“So I’ll see you when you get back?” Bucky asks, unable to keep the hope out of his voice.

“Yeah, Buck, you will,” Steve says husky and low, and he kisses Bucky again. It tastes like a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiii kudos and comments, please?


	8. Gorgeous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this what you were waiting for?
> 
> This is where the "explicit" rating really kicks in.

Bucky spends the next few days in quiet panic, constantly checking his phone. Now that Steve is allowed to be back on the grid, he has a phone again, though it’s still untraceable (thanks to Tony Stark) because of course Steve and the other Avengers are still doing illegal shit like tracking down Hydra bases and planning on blowing up the Triskelion. He half expects to see one of them show up in his ICU until he remembers that they’re in _Alabama _of all fucking places.

On day four, Bucky gets a text.

**From: Steve 11:23 AM**  
_On our way back. ETA 4 hours, and then we’ll have to debrief. I’ll text you after._

Bucky feels like he can finally exhale, like the way his heart had climbed into his throat the minute Steve left had been preventing him from breathing. It feels good, his lungs finally working again, his heart settling back down in his chest. He taps out a reply.

  
**To: Steve 11:24 AM  
**_Are you okay?_

**From: Steve 11:24 AM**  
_I’m good, Buck._

He can almost hear Steve’s voice saying his name like that, and that’s all the nudge he needs to think, _fuck it, I can’t wait_. He barely remembers to pull on his black Doc Martens and wrap a gray scarf around his neck before stumbling out into the late October chill to make his way to Avengers Tower.

The strawberry blonde receptionist must recognize him, because she nods him through.

Once the elevator doors close him in, he realizes he has no idea where he’s going before he remembers Black Widow. “Um…FRIDAY?” he says, looking up at the ceiling hesitantly. 

“Hello, Sergeant Barnes,” the smooth voice responds. “What can I do for you?”

He tries not to startle, unsure if AIs can get offended. If anyone can make an AI that can get offended, it’s probably Tony Stark. “Where does Steve…where do the Avengers usually debrief?”

“Conference room four, seventy-seventh floor,” FRIDAY answers.

“Okay, take me there,” Bucky says with some confidence, and the elevator starts to move.

“Yes, sir,” chirps the AI.

When he reaches the floor, he barges down the massive hallway until he spots the plaque signaling the correct conference room, and he pushes open the glass doors. Inside, there’s a long, glossy black table with many comfortable-looking swivel chairs around it and an enormous glass screen at the opposite end of the room. The floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the city, Avengers Tower dwarfing all nearby buildings easily.

Bucky feels small, making his way over to a chair and pulling it toward the window.

He spends the next three and a half hours alternating between watching the city below and snoozing in the surprisingly comfortable chair, only waking when he’s leaned back too far and his life metaphorically flashes before his eyes.

He wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t been looking right at it, but he hears the roaring of a jet and sees a ripple in the sky, clouds waving strangely around some object moving toward the Tower. He doesn’t get a chance to be afraid, just hears whirring noises and distant thunks coming from high above him, probably the roof, and he furrows his brow and takes off toward the elevator to investigate.

Because Bucky doesn’t really think things through, he doesn’t expect to face-plant into the chest of one Steve Rogers, clad in a navy blue uniform that—_Jesus, Steve, really?_—seems to have had its signature star ripped from the seams, though his shield still pokes out over his shoulders (just barely). He smells like sweat and blood and gunpowder, which should be off-putting but of course, with Steve, it’s anything but, and Bucky barely has time to step back before Steve is steadying him with his hands. Bucky notices smudges all over Steve’s face and a mean cut above his eyebrow. Anger surges through him.

“Buck, is everything okay?” Steve asks, running his hands down Bucky’s arms like he’s searching for injuries.

“You said you weren’t hurt!” Bucky admonishes, reaching out to run his fingers along Steve’s hairline, avoiding the laceration.

Steve’s frown tugs into a half-smile and he glances up like he can see his own forehead. “It’s nothing, Bucky,” he reassures him, letting one hand drift to the strand of Bucky’s hair that has fallen into his face, and he tucks it behind Bucky’s ear. “And to be fair, I never said I wasn’t hurt.”

“You implied it and you know it, asshole,” Bucky grouses, narrowing his eyes and rubbing one thumb over Steve’s cheekbone.

“Is this the infamous Bucky?” someone behind Steve says, and Bucky realizes suddenly that they’re not alone.

Steve sighs deeply, taking Bucky’s hand and tugging him out of the entryway. As soon as he does, Bucky watches most of the Avengers spill out of the elevator. There’s Falcon—_Sam_—jet pack still on his shoulders, offering Bucky a crooked grin and moving to wave before grimacing in pain and pulling his arm back to his side. Then there’s Natasha, who seems uninjured, hair still remarkably kempt and straight, brushing her collarbone. Behind her is Hawkeye, wearing a smug half-smile, a nasty burn on his forearm, a blood-soaked rip in the chest of his suit, and an empty quiver at his back. Thor appears beside Hawkeye, and his long, blonde hair has been cut, the sides of his head buzzed and the top longer and sticking up in some places with sweat, an eyepatch over his right eye and the handle of his huge hammer gripped in one palm, red cape flowing out behind him. Following him is Tony Stark in his Iron Man suit that’s sporting a few dents and scrapes, faceplate open as his dark eyes find Bucky and he grins, waggling his fingers at him. Bucky realizes it was him who’d spoken.

“I’m infamous?” Bucky asks, a little breathless with the Avengers surrounding him.

“This is your James?” Thor interrupts, looking from Steve to Bucky and breaking out in a grin that really does something for his face. He’s undeniably handsome, especially with the haircut. Bucky feels a little weak in the knees, and an inhuman squeak escapes his lips.

Steve narrows his eyes infinitesimally as his gaze moves from Bucky to Thor. “This is Bucky,” he offers to the crowd.

“We go way back,” Natasha says with a wink in Bucky’s direction before sauntering off toward the conference room. Sam claps a hand on Bucky shoulder as he passes, following her.

“Well met, Sergeant Barnes,” Thor says, extending a hand to shake Bucky’s, and he feels the handshake all the way up to his shoulder.

“Gotta say, Capsicle,” Tony says, clunking over to Bucky, not being shy about giving him the once-over. His eyes find Bucky’s metal hand, but there’s no surprise on his face, only a flash of something Bucky can’t place, and then it’s gone. “You could do worse.”

Bucky flushes a little, unsure of what Steve has told the Avengers about him but pleased that he’s been mentioned at all. “Is that a compliment?”

“That’s Tony-speak for ‘you’re hot,’” Steve explains.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that statement, but unfortunately for you both, I’m spoken for,” Tony says, patting Bucky on the back with his own metal hand as he walks by.

Bucky feels lightheaded for so many different reasons, one definitely being his continued proximity to Steve’s chest. “So, that was the Avengers?” he offers weakly.

Steve chuckles, moving forward to press his body against Bucky’s as he wraps his arms around Bucky’s waist. “Underwhelming lot, aren’t they?” he murmurs.

“It’s not exactly the word I would use,” Bucky says.

“What are you doing here, Buck? I told you I’d text you when the debrief was over,” says Steve, though he doesn’t look upset as he presses his forehead to Bucky’s, his skin searing hot.

“I couldn’t wait.”

“I’m glad,” Steve whispers. He ghosts his lips against Bucky’s, breath hot, and that’s all it takes for Bucky to close what little distance is left between them and takes Steve’s bottom lip between his.

The kiss is less desperate than their first, more languid and relishing as one of Steve’s hands finds its way into Bucky’s hair and grabs on, tipping Bucky’s head back to deepen it. Bucky can feel desire pooling low as his dick starts to harden in the pair of black skinny jeans he’d tugged on before barging out his front door. He presses against Steve’s thigh, unable to bite back the groan that the feeling of friction punches from his lungs.

He doesn’t hear the elevator ding.

“Captain Rogers,” a gruff voice barks, “can this reunion wait until after the debrief?”

For the second time in a matter of minutes, Bucky is gazing at a man with an eyepatch, though this one is dark-skinned and bald, wearing a leather duster over an all-black outfit and a frown deeper than the Grand Canyon. 

“Yes, sir,” says Steve. Bucky thinks that this guy who’s appeared could cow just about anyone with his tone of voice and stern, furrowed-brow look, but Steve sounds almost sarcastic in his response. The man raises one eyebrow and crosses both arms in front of his chest, scowling now.

“You care to introduce your guest, or should I wait for Natasha’s background check?”

Steve is positively glowering, crossing his own arms in imitation. “As if you haven’t already seen it,” he replies.

The man’s scowl breaks into a tight-lipped smile, and his eyes find Bucky. “James Buchanan Barnes, born March 10th, 1986 in Shelbyville, Indiana to Winifred and George Barnes, older brother to Rebecca Penelope Barnes. Joined the United States Army in 2004 as a sniper. Moved back to Brooklyn in 2010 and became a registered nurse at Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. Lost an arm in the Battle of New York in 2012 and received an adamantium alloy prosthetic, courtesy of the Stark Relief Fund. Housed an international fugitive, Steven Grant Rogers, codename Captain America, for two months in his Brooklyn apartment.”

The silence following is thick with tension, which Bucky doesn’t do well with, and _fuck_, if this man knows this much about him, what else does he know? He feels naked.

“You had _no right_—“ Steve starts, uncrossing his arms and striding toward the man, but Bucky plants himself in Steve’s path, raising a hand to Steve’s chest.

“It’s okay,” he says, not particularly wanting to watch Steve kick this guy’s ass, though it would probably be pretty hot. He turns to the man whose life he figured he’d just saved. “Maybe I could get your name, since you seem to know so much about me?”

“Director Nicholas Joseph Fury,” he says, taking Bucky’s offered hand.

“Not sure you’re Director of anything anymore,” Steve interjects.

Fury grins then, turning to Steve. “Got me there, Cap.”

Bucky finally places the name. “You were Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he says. “You helped design those helicarriers.”

Fury’s face hardens and he glares over Bucky’s shoulder at Steve. “I guess you decided to up his security clearance without asking me.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still the Captain of this team,” Steve replies.

Fury’s eyes narrow. “Then you can lead the debrief,” he says, turning on his heel and stalking down the hallway.

Steve looks down at Bucky, face softening with Fury’s absence. “God, Bucky, I am so sorry,” he says, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around Bucky again, and before Bucky can process the closeness, Steve is pressing a frenzied kiss to his lips. Bucky leans into it, opening up and letting Steve lick inside, fire erupting low in his belly at the contented sigh Steve breathes into his mouth. Steve presses him closer, fingers digging into Bucky’s leather jacket hard enough to bruise. When Steve finally breaks the kiss, Bucky is stunned into silence. “I missed you so bad,” Steve whispers. “I couldn’t stop thinking about kissing you and how I should have been doing it since the minute you let me into your apartment.” He dips his head to kiss Bucky again, lips still wet from Bucky’s tongue. “I’m so sorry about Fury. I should have warned you about him.”

“It’s not your fault, Steve,” Bucky replies. “I probably should have seen that coming.” Bucky tips forward, resting his face against Steve’s neck. It feels so good to be this close to him, his body responding and lighting up in ways that are inappropriate for the hallway, but he can’t help it. In some strange twist of events, Steve fucking Rogers thinks about kissing him when he’s on a mission. “I missed you too,” he admits because his heart is begging him to, and he kisses the pulse point that is throbbing under his lips. He doesn’t miss the way Steve shudders in response, and he wants so badly to see what it’s like to take Steve apart with his mouth and his hands, see what other reactions he can yank from Steve’s chest, but Steve pulls away. Again. God dammit.

As if reading his mind, Steve smiles and says, “I know, but I gotta—” he waves his arm in the direction of the conference room. “I promise I’ll make it as quick as possible. Will you wait for me in my suite?” Steve asks as if Bucky could possibly do anything else.

Turns out, making out with Steve on his couch is just as good as making out with Steve while being pushed against the wall, or making out with Steve in the hallway on the seventy-seventh floor of Avengers Tower. 

Even better, maybe, because Bucky is straddling Steve and pressing him down into the couch cushions, and he has Steve’s t-shirt pulled aside to get to his collarbone, pressing his lips and tongue along it and getting hitched sighs and fingers clamping down on his hips in response. He’s trying to avoid Steve’s bruised ribs and the cut over his eye that already looks like it’s trying to sew itself back together, but he’s only human, and with his dick straining in his pants, he can’t be counted on to think straight. Steve doesn’t seem to mind anyway, because Bucky can feel Steve’s own erection pressing against him.

“Bedroom?” Bucky finally chokes out between kisses, and Steve wastes no time sitting up, wrapping Bucky’s legs around his hips, and standing, supporting Bucky with both hands on his ass. “_Fuck_, you’re strong,” he praises as Steve makes his way to his bedroom, muscles not even straining with Bucky’s weight, which is astonishing, because Bucky weighs at least 190 pounds with the arm. It’s hot as hell.

Steve hums into Bucky’s mouth, kicking open the door at the end of the carpeted hallway, and deposits Bucky onto his unmade bed, the duvet soft and white underneath him. Steve follows Bucky down, opening Bucky’s mouth with his own and sinking both hands into Bucky’s hair. Bucky slips his fingers underneath Steve’s t-shirt, his skin is hot and soft under his flesh hand. He tries to be gentle with his prosthetic hand, hesitant to touch, but Steve presses into it, shivering and gasping when the cool metal meets skin. Bucky makes his way up to Steve’s chest, the muscles bulging under his palms, and he skates his metal fingers over one nipple, which gets Steve arching into the touch again. When he takes his nipple between his fingers and tugs a little, Steve _keens_, breaking their kiss and tugging at Bucky’s hair.

“_Jesus_, Buck,” he murmurs, sitting up so his knees are bracketing Bucky’s and pulling his shirt over his head. Bucky barely has time to register the bruising on Steve’s left side before Steve is pulling Bucky’s shirt over his head too.

Bucky freezes. No one has seen him shirtless since the accident, and yeah, Steve knew about the arm, but it’s a lot different seeing where it’s attached to his skin. Bucky rarely looks at it in the mirror anymore, hating the way the angry, pink scars meet the hard, silver metal at the shoulder. He’d done it to himself, and it makes him sick sometimes to think about it.

Steve must notice the way Bucky’s frozen, looking down at him with concern, though it’s done nothing to abate the darkness of his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says automatically, bringing his right hand up to cover his shoulder as if he could hide it from view.

Steve’s brow furrows, a little crease appearing just above his nose. “Buck,” he whispers, reaching for Bucky’s hand that’s covering his shoulder. He hesitates but laces their fingers together and moves Bucky’s hand out of the way. “Why are you apologizing?”

Bucky finds he can’t look at Steve anymore, so he fixes his eyes to the ceiling. “I know it’s ugly,” he says, swallowing hard against his dry throat.

Steve makes a huffing sound, releasing Bucky’s hand at his side. “Can I…”

Bucky can hear the unasked question, and he shrugs, still refusing to look at Steve’s face. “I don’t know why you’d want—”

His sentence is cut off by the feeling of Steve’s fingers skating over the scarring, running from his skin down to where the metal joins it, and down further, where he can still feel the press of Steve’s fingers over his bicep and down to the crook of his elbow. Steve moves then, leaning closer, and Bucky can feel his warm breath against his skin, making him tremble a little before Steve presses his lips against him.

It shouldn’t feel…good.

But it does.

Steve presses kisses all along his shoulder, over every scar, every ridge of marked skin, and down the metal too, lifting his arm with a gentle tug of his fingers catching around the wrist, making his way down to kiss his palm and the tips of each finger. Bucky’s heart is a battering ram against his ribcage, beating so loud he’s sure Steve can hear it.

When he’s done, Steve cups Bucky’s jaw, pressing a finger into the cleft of Bucky’s chin and tugging down, silently commanding Bucky too look at him. He does, finally, noticing the still-dilated pupils and reverent awe apparent in Steve’s impossibly blue eyes. He doesn’t understand it, how that look can be for him, how Steve can school his face that way after seeing Bucky’s scars, but then he’s _Steve_, and God, he’s gorgeous, inside and out. “You’re beautiful, Bucky,” Steve says like he’s reading Bucky’s mind. “Every inch of you. I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful in my life.” And the way he says it doesn’t sound insincere.

Bucky shakes his head. “You’re unbelievable, Rogers,” he breathes, grabbing both of Steve’s arms and pulling him back down, surging into a kiss that’s both sweet and desperate, and has Steve grinning against his mouth.

It doesn’t take long for Bucky to get hard again under Steve’s ministrations.

Steve breaks their kiss again to let his mouth wander down Bucky’s jawline and to his throat, sinking lower to trail wet kisses down his chest and stomach, where he comes to a stop at the waistline of Bucky’s jeans. He looks up, then, taking his lip in between his teeth to bite back a smile, those ridiculously long eyelashes flickering. “Can I…” he starts again for the second time in ten minutes.

“Yes, _Jesus_,” Bucky says, trying not to cant his hips forward and press himself into Steve’s face. God, seeing Steve’s mouth so close to his dick is sending him nearly delirious with want. “Anything,” he manages, bunching the sheets into his fists. “Anything you want, Steve, yes, _please_.” He’s not above begging, he finds, not when Steve is chuckling low and amused and pressing his palms up Bucky’s jean-clad thighs.

“Anything?” he asks, raising an eyebrow as his hands work their way up, long fingers finally digging into his waistband and popping the button free before stilling.

So apparently Steve Rogers is a tease.

It’s so fucking hot.

“_Yes_,” Bucky whines, squirming a little, picking his head up to watch Steve work. 

Steve face breaks out into a grin, fingers finding Bucky’s zipper and slowly dragging it down. The sound and the feeling of it vibrating against him sends hot desire swooping low, his dick aching for freedom. He drops his head back on the bed, closes his eyes, and moans. He feels Steve’s fingers dig into his jeans, making their way under the waistband of his boxer briefs too. “Lift up,” Steve says. Bucky does, and Steve gets Bucky’s pants and underwear off quickly, his dick finally springing free as Steve’s weight on top of him disappears. Bucky opens his eyes to watch Steve slide his own pants and underwear down and climb out of them.

Jesus.

The sight nearly sends Bucky into a total blackout, because Steve is…he’s _perfect_, his skin supple and pale, his dick incredibly hard and _huge_, and Bucky wonders if that’s a side effect of the serum or if Steve had always been blessed like that. He figures it’s probably the latter.

He could stare at Steve naked all day, but Steve has other ideas. He climbs back on top of Bucky, leaning over to fumble in the drawer of the nightstand and pulling out a bottle of lube.

“Prepared, huh?” Bucky quips, eyes not having moved from Steve’s dick.

“How do you want this?” Steve asks, ignoring Bucky’s question.

“Whatever you want, Steve,” is all Bucky can answer when he’s finally dragged his eyes back to Steve’s face. “Whatever you want just…just take it.”

Steve exhales loudly, popping the cap on the lube and pouring it onto his hand, rubbing his fingers against his palm to warm it. He drops the bottle beside them and immediately grabs Bucky’s dick at the hilt, sliding his hand up and circling his thumb around the tip, applying just enough pressure. The friction is delicious and amazing and Bucky’s answering moan is as insistent as his hips as he grinds into Steve’s hand a few times.

“You want this so bad, don’t you?” Steve husks, low and gravelly as he lazily jerks Bucky off.

“_God_, yes. Please, Steve, just—please, I need you to—” Bucky says, but he can’t form sentences, can’t do anything but keep his hips moving, fucking into Steve’s fist.

“Shh, I got you, don’t worry, darlin’,” Steve says, taking his hand off Bucky, which really drives Bucky crazy, and he whimpers at the loss until he feels Steve move down between Bucky’s legs, nudging them apart. He feels one of Steve’s lube-slick fingers press against his hole. “This okay?” he asks.

“Stop asking and just fucking do it,” Bucky pleads, voice gruff. 

Steve laughs a little before pressing his finger in, the stretch and heat rippling up Bucky’s spine as he hisses between his teeth. “So pushy,” he teases, but he doesn’t stop, slowly burying his finger further in, to the knuckle and then all the way, his other hand rubbing Bucky’s thigh. He pulls it out a little, testing, pushing it forward and back, and the stretch starts to feel good. Bucky loves the way Steve’s face looks now as he fucks Bucky with his finger, his lip pulled between his teeth, breathing quick. He glances at Bucky’s face, and Bucky nods at the unspoken question. Steve presses another finger inside, working this one just as slow, finally crooking his fingers and brushing the tangle of nerve endings that rips a shout from Bucky’s throat. Steve doesn’t relent, just keeps prodding that spot, and Bucky sees stars even behind his eyelids.

He works in a third finger finally, and Bucky’s spilling broken moans from his mouth, hips moving to fuck himself on Steve’s fingers even as Steve’s other hand closes around his leaking dick.

”_Fuck_!” he yells as Steve jerks him once.

Steve’s hand on his dick stills. “Jesus, Bucky, you’re—this is—I want—”

“_Yes_, Steve, please, fuck me,” he begs, artless and desperate, voice completely wrecked, but he’s too far gone now to care.

“Jesus, okay,” Steve says, but his fingers don’t stop. “I can’t catch anything or, or give you anything—”

“Oh my God, Steve,” Bucky groans, the thought alone nearly tipping him over the edge. He digs his fingers harder into the sheets. “Okay, no condom, just—just, _please_, put your dick inside me before I lose my mind.”

Steve moves quickly, pulling his fingers out of Bucky and pouring more lube onto his hand, slicking up his own cock, which has him throwing his head back a little and groaning. Bucky’s never seen anything like it. Steve moves to line himself up with Bucky, and the feeling of the head of Steve’s dick pressing against him is so much more incredible than he imagined, even when jerking off in the shower. The thought is erased from his mind as Steve presses forward, lowering himself down and kissing Bucky messily, tongue insistent and dipping into his mouth even as Steve inches further inside him.

When Steve is finally seated to the hilt, Bucky feels like he might come apart at the seams, his own dick trapped between them, wet from lube and their sweat and his pre-cum. Steve moans into Bucky’s mouth, a sound so worshipful and rapt that it should be illegal, but it sends white-hot fire through Bucky’s veins.

When Steve pulls out gently, just the head of his dick still inside, and pushes forward, Bucky nearly comes. His hands have found their way to Steve’s back, fingers digging into his skin as Steve moves above him, one of Steve’s hands back in Bucky’s sweaty, tangled hair.

“Is this what you wanted?” Steve growls in Bucky’s ear as he reaches down with his free hand and starts jerking Bucky to the rhythm of his thrusts.

Bucky literally can’t form words now. The feeling of Steve inside him and around him, his breath hot in Bucky’s ear is overwhelming in its magnificence. He’s never been this turned on before. He’s never been this hard or this stimulated or this needy. He can barely think, the feeling of Steve fucking him in earnest with his hand wrapped around Bucky’s dick is everything that exists in the entire world.

“Bucky, Bucky, _Bucky,_” Steve is saying over and over again as he pulls back and sinks in faster and faster, the look on his face totally blissed-out.

“_God_, you feel so fucking good,” Bucky manages around the searing pleasure that’s fogging his brain. He knows he’s right on the verge, knows just a few more seconds and he’ll be there, and _God_, he wants it so bad. “’M gonna come,” he says, flexing his fingers into the flesh of Steve’s shoulder.

“Come on, sweetheart, come for me,” Steve whispers, guttural and urgent in his ear, his hand and hips speeding up, and it tips Bucky over the edge. He comes, thick and hot between them, moaning Steve’s name as Steve works him through it. Steve groans then too, picking up the pace just a little and pressing both hands on either side of Bucky’s head. “Do you…want me…to come inside you?” he asks, though Bucky can tell it’s hard for him to get the words out.

“Yes, _fuck_, I want your come inside me, Steve, _please_, come on, baby.” The words spill from his mouth as Steve thrusts forward a few more times before he’s moaning Bucky’s name like it’s getting torn out of him as he empties himself inside Bucky. It’s the hottest fucking thing Bucky’s ever seen.

In his post-coital haze, Bucky doesn’t notice when Steve rolls off of him and disappears into the bathroom, and only comes to when he feels the soft fabric of a towel against his abdomen and chest. “Mm,” is all he can say, catching Steve’s arm in his hand and tugging him down for a kiss that’s slow and solid, lingering against his lips and digging into his skin, right down into his bones. He feels full with it, sated, _happy_, his heart thumping wildly. Steve smiles, setting the towel aside and bringing his hand to rest over Bucky’s chest like he could hear Bucky’s heartbeat and wanted to feel it for himself.

Steve grabs the covers and brings the sheets over them both, propping up on one elbow and slinging his other arm around Bucky, combing his fingers through Bucky’s hair, working out the knots. “Feels good,” Bucky mumbles, turning so his face is buried in Steve’s chest. He plants a kiss there and nuzzles his face against the warm skin. He feels Steve duck his head and kiss Bucky’s crown before moving the arm that had propped him up and digging it under Bucky’s neck so Bucky’s head is pillowed on his shoulder. He falls asleep with Steve’s fingers still raking through his hair.

Bucky wakes like he always does—slow, like butter melting in a skillet, and he hears the distinctive sizzle of bacon fat, the smell of it mixed with coffee winding its way into the haze of the morning. He can still smell Steve all around him, too, and he grins like an idiot before shoving the sheets off his legs, pulling on his boxer briefs, and making his way into the bathroom. Once he’s relieved himself, he looks in the mirror, hair an absolute mess and spilling out of his ponytail holder, face red and lined from the sheets. He pulls his hair back into a mostly-tamed bun, rinses his face with cold water, and notices a red toothbrush still in its package by the sink basin. He smiles to himself.

When he finally makes his way down the hallway and into the open space, he sees Steve at the stove, dressed in a pair of gym shorts and comically small t-shirt, humming to himself and sipping out of another boring cream-colored mug. The kitchen is four times the size of Bucky’s, the countertops white marble with gray veins, the appliances shiny and black. There’s a kitchen island with black cushioned stools aligned behind it. Bucky picks his way over, sliding his arms around Steve’s waist and resting his chin on Steve’s shoulder. Steve must have heard him because he doesn’t startle, just turns in Bucky’s arms and smacks a kiss to his lips, coffee cup in one hand and tongs in the other. 

“You’re standing way too close to the line of fire,” Steve warns, setting his cup down and pinching Bucky’s bare side. Bucky yelps, swatting his hand away. “Haven’t you ever been told not to cook bacon naked?”

“’M not naked, and besides, ’m not cooking,” he says, swiping Steve’s coffee cup and sidling over to a stool while taking a long sip before sitting down and tucking an errant strand of hair behind his ear. Steve stares. “I can put on more clothes though, if you want.”

Steve shakes his head, grinning and leaning over the island to kiss Bucky again, like he can’t get enough, and Bucky, for one, isn’t bothered in the least. “Don’t you dare,” Steve answers, turning back to the bacon and flipping it.

They eat side-by-side at the island, Bucky tucking his foot behind Steve’s leg, offering Steve the last few bites of his toast, which Steve takes after pressing a kiss to the corner of Bucky’s lip despite both of their mouths being full of egg. Bucky sure as hell doesn’t mind.

“How did the mission go?” Bucky finally asks once they’ve finished breakfast and Steve is dumping their dishes into the sink.

“We got the intel,” he replies, running the faucet. “Don’t know yet what it says, but I’m sure Fury and Nat are pouring over that right now. Won’t be long until I hear something.”

“And then you’ll go to D.C.” Bucky says, trying not to sound strained. He must fail, because Steve comes over to him and runs his hands through Bucky’s hair, kissing his temple.

“Probably not for a couple of months,” he answers. 

The answer surprises Bucky. “Aren’t you worried about what Hydra will do in that time?”

“Tony has this new AI he’s set up to warn us if anything happens with those helicarriers. There’s not a lot of damage they can do without them for now. We have to figure out who all is involved with this, how high up it all goes, how far they’ve gotten with the serum and the Project Insight algorithm. We have to come up with a game plan, and we have backup to call in.”

“Backup?”

Steve grins. “Yeah,” is all he says. “Sam and Clint are on that.”

“Am I keeping you from doing your homework?” Bucky teases, trying to further lighten the mood.

“Is that what you’re calling yourself?” Steve responds, giving Bucky an exaggerated wink.

Bucky groans. “Rogers, that wasn’t even good.”

“Mm, that’s not what you said last night,” Steve reminds him, cupping his jaw and taking Bucky’s bottom lip between his own, tugging a little and biting down, then soothing the sting with a flick of his tongue. Bucky’s all but helpless against the full force of Steve Rogers’s kisses, and he knows he’s a goner when Steve trails his fingertips down Bucky’s chest.

“If you’re not careful, we’ll end up christening this countertop,” Bucky warns even as he quickly tugs Steve’s shirt up and over his head, hands roving down Steve’s back to grab his ass. Steve leans forward again, grinning against Bucky’s mouth.

“Well, this kitchen _is _pretty boring. We could…_spice _it up a little.” Steve moves Bucky to his feet, digging his fingers into the waistband of Bucky’s boxer briefs and rubbing at Bucky’s hardening cock.

“Did you just make a dad joke while feeling me up?” Bucky asks, breathless as Steve presses harder, getting Bucky in his hand and stroking slowly.

“No, I just made a dad joke before sucking your dick,” Steve corrects him as he drops to his knees.

_Holy shit_ is all Bucky has time to think before he’s gaping down at Steve as he tugs Bucky’s boxer briefs down to his ankles, jerking him once more with his hand and then pressing his hot tongue to the underside of Bucky’s dick, trailing it all the way up to the head and circling the tip. Bucky leans back against the counter and groans, tipping his head back and shutting his eyes. “Jesus fucking _Christ_, Steve,” he chokes out, one hand behind him to steady him against the counter and the other finding purchase in Steve’s hair. Steve grins up at him before taking his whole dick in his mouth, and the white-hot fire that laps up Bucky’s body is all-consuming. 

Bucky moans, long and loud, opening his eyes again to look back down at Steve, whose hand is wrapped around the base of Bucky’s cock, lips red and wet against his skin as he bobs up and down on him. Bucky swallows hard against his dry throat, tries to breathe through the pleasure, and reaches his hand around to Steve’s face when Steve slows, pressing his fingers in so he can feel the shape of his dick through Steve’s cheek. The feeling is fucking _unreal_, and it punches another moan from his throat when Steve speeds back up and hums, the vibration inching him closer and closer to climax.

“Steve, _fu-fuck_,” he babbles, “God, your mouth feels so hot, _fuck_, don’t stop.” Steve speeds up, his lips and tongue everywhere, his hand helping him along, and it could be minutes or hours, but suddenly Bucky is saying, “Oh my _god_, Steve, I’m gonna come.” Steve doesn’t stop, just moans around Bucky’s dick, and Bucky is flung over the edge and comes hard down Steve’s throat. Steve’s unrelenting rhythm finally slows, working Bucky through the aftershocks with his hand and his lips, his tongue circling the tip once more before letting Bucky go. He stands, trailing kisses up Bucky’s abdomen and chest as he goes, finally making his way to Bucky’s lips and pressing a soft kiss there. “Christ, Rogers, you’re gonna kill me,” he whispers, legs threatening to give out beneath him.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Steve says, voice gruff as he twines his fingers in Bucky’s and leads him over to the couch. Bucky doesn’t even complain that he’s naked and Steve still has his gym shorts on because he’s called Bucky _sweetheart _for the second time, and it’s so fucking nice that he can’t think about anything else. 

Bucky does, at some point, have to extricate himself from Steve to go back to work. He feels like he’s leading a double life—nurse by day, Captain America’s boyfriend by night—until a couple of weeks later.

Bucky is slouched in his desk chair, squinting at a list of numbers in front of him and plugging them into his patient’s electronic medical record when he hears the unit secretary, Josseline, gasp and drop the phone handset onto her keyboard. Bucky rubs his eyes and swivels in his chair to see Steve leaning against the countertop, chin propped up on his open palm, his other hand wrapped around a cup of Starbucks coffee. He has a navy blue scarf hugging his neck and tucked into the front of a brown leather jacket, a vintage Brooklyn Dodgers cap pulled low over his forehead. He’s still recognizable. Whoever taught the man about going undercover was doing a seriously terrible job.

Bucky can’t fight the grin that threatens to rip his face in half at the sight, anyway.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says, rounding the corner of the counter and moving so he’s directly in front of Bucky’s computer. He pushes the Starbucks cup toward him.

“You brought me coffee?” Bucky responds dumbly, plucking the cup up and taking a sip before setting it down and standing up. He can see Josseline’s mouth opening and closing like a fish in his peripheral.

“I missed you,” Steve offers as explanation as Bucky moves out from behind the nurses’ station. The fact that Steve says this kind of stuff to Bucky is still so unbelievable to him. His heart jumps hard against his ribcage.

“Missed you too,” Bucky murmurs, planting a kiss to Steve’s cheek. Steve preens a little, looking pleased with himself.

“Holy shit,” Josseline says, dark eyes behind her large, round glasses not moving from the two of them as she picks the handset up from where she’d dropped it and hangs it up. 

Bucky chuckles because that had been his reaction when he’d first seen Steve, too. “Josseline, this is Steve,” he says. She practically jumps out of her chair, her black hair in the long ponytail at the back of her head swaying as she rounds the counter and sticks out her hand.

“Holy shit,” she repeats when Steve has finally removed his hand from hers. “You’re Captain America.”

“I have a feeling this is kind of the reaction you always get in public,” Bucky says, slapping Steve on the arm.

Steve reddens a little, eyes flicking up to the brim of his baseball cap. “I never expect people to recognize me.”

“You’re gonna have to do better than a hat, Steve. Maybe try some sunglasses.”

“It’s dark outside!”

“There’s a song about that,” Bucky points out, but Steve just looks puzzled. Bucky sighs, shaking his head. “There’s not a lot you can do to hide those ridiculous fucking shoulders, anyway,” he says, nudging Steve with his elbow. Steve rolls his eyes but smiles fondly, putting an arm around Bucky’s waist, squeezing his hip, and nuzzling his nose in Bucky’s hair.

Josseline’s mouth falls open as if she’s just cottoned on to what she’s seeing. “Are…are you…are you two…?”

Panic suddenly flares in Bucky’s stomach as he tries to move from Steve’s side, but Steve’s iron grip on his waist tightens as Steve just manages to pull Bucky closer. “Yeah, he’s my…” Steve starts before licking his bottom lip and pulling it between his teeth. He looks down at Bucky for help.

“Friend?” Bucky suggests. He’s not sure what Steve’s trying to indicate with his hand around his waist or that look on his face, but he doesn’t want to out Steve to anyone, especially when Steve is also Captain America and has very much not come out to the rest of the world.

Steve frowns, eyebrows knitting together. “Uh, I was going to say ‘boyfriend,’ but we haven’t actually discussed—”

“_Bucky Barnes_! Captain America is your _boyfriend _and you haven’t _told me_?” Josseline grouses, hands planted on her hips.

“To be fair, I didn’t know,” Bucky points out. “But, um, yeah. I guess he is.” Bucky can’t help the way his heart picks up speed when Steve beams down at him, or the urges piling low in his belly when Steve plants a soft kiss on his lips.

“Well, boyfriend,” Steve murmurs in Bucky’s ear, “I’ll see you when you get off work?”

“Yeah,” he breathes, feeling so elated that his brain isn’t quite working right. Steve kisses Bucky on the forehead before squeezing his hip once more and removing his arm from around Bucky’s waist. 

“It was nice to meet you, Josseline.”

“You too, Captain,” she says, tucking her hands in the pockets of her bright blue scrub pants.

Bucky sees the dazed expression she wears as she turns to watch Steve leave, and, yeah. He gets it. He thinks he probably looks about as dumbstruck as she does.

Being Steve Rogers’s boyfriend turns out to be a little different than being Captain America’s boyfriend. 

In the safety of their homes, being Steve Rogers’s boyfriend means waking up with coffee already made and breakfast on the way, either in the privacy of Bucky’s tiny kitchen or in the grander kitchen of Steve’s suite in Avengers Tower. It means stopping to pet every single dog they pass as they walk down the street, nearly all of them jumping up and dirtying Steve’s jeans as he tips his head back and laughs. It means late, quiet nights, Bucky drifting off to sleep, his head on one end of the couch and his feet propped in Steve’s lap as Steve sketches. It means his heart squeezing a little too tight in his chest when Steve scrunches up his face as he scans the prices of chicken breasts in the poultry section of the grocery store, or when he thumbs through a newspaper, eyebrows knitted together, or when his breath catches in his throat when he notices Bucky tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. It means the ever-burning lick of flames up his spine when Steve moves inside him, long fingers digging into his hips and breath hot against his neck as Bucky sucks mouth-shaped bruises onto Steve’s shoulder, delighting when he gets one to linger long enough to still be dark against his skin in the morning. It means stealing kisses on the subway or being dragged into an empty room and making out in front of the art at the MOMA. It means falling, falling way too fast and way too slow all at once, the words begging to be free from Bucky’s mouth but the terror stilling them before they can be formed.

Being Captain America’s boyfriend means “team brunch” in the penthouse suite, complete with literal bottles of Dom Perignon 1959 Rosé Vintage (“Only 306 bottles ever produced,” Tony gloats. “Cost forty-two grand a bottle.”). It means new “teammates” pouring in every week. It means watching with a glare as someone named Scott Lang trips over his own feet when he hurries to greet Steve with a too-long handshake. It means being introduced to Bruce Banner, Wanda Maximoff, Vision (“He’s hard to explain,” Steve says), Colonel Rhodes, T’Challa (when Sam whispers loudly, “He wears a catsuit,” T’Challa offers a royal glare) and his General, Okoye, Hope Pym, and a woman who introduces herself as Brunnhilde but who everyone calls Valkyrie.

Being Captain America’s boyfriend also means getting his picture snapped in public, often when they’re together, at dinner or, even, sometimes, at a movie, when it’s hard to miss the flashing of a phone camera. It means Bucky occasionally gets recognized as Captain America’s boyfriend at work, especially after Steve gives him a badge reel that’s Captain America’s shield, which he almost certainly didn’t actually expect Bucky to use, which in turn of course meant Bucky immediately moved his ID badge from his old, anatomical heart-shaped badge reel to the clip dangling from the shield badge reel.

Being Captain America’s boyfriend also means a press conference that Steve barrels his way through after nearly attacking the Fox News reporter, who doesn’t bother to hide his disgust of Steve’s sexuality. Steve ends the press conference by ducking behind the curtain, pulling Bucky on stage, and kissing him stupid while cheers erupt from the onlooking crowd. The picture from said kiss has been splashed on all the front pages under headlines like “CAPTAIN AMERICA: OUT OF THE ICE AND OUT OF THE CLOSET.” 

Being Steve Rogers’s boyfriend, and also being Captain America’s boyfriend, means invitations to Tony Stark’s exclusive parties, including his Halloween bash, to which Steve and Bucky show up dressed as Superman and Lois Lane, respectively.

But being Steve Rogers’s boyfriend, and being Captain America’s boyfriend, also, apparently, means having your life threatened by Hydra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are my lifeblood.


	9. Don't Blame Me

It’s one of those “team brunch” days, and over the last few weeks, Bucky has gotten used to spending a lot of time with the Avengers and co. At first, it was like living in a weird dream where the God of Thunder passes you syrup and Black Widow scares the shit out of you by standing behind you while you make coffee after you definitely didn’t hear her walk up. After a while, though, it’s more like a surreal nightmare where Valkyrie spikes her morning orange juice with champagne and Tony Stark occasionally pokes Bruce with various objects that give off electric sparks, some so strong they singe his button-downs, all while Steve barely manages to keep his closed fist from decking the guy in the face.

“Man, you have _got _to quit doing that!” Sam squawks as coffee sloshes over the rim of his mug when the twang of an electrical impulse startles him. Bucky has gotten so used to it that he doesn’t even flinch anymore.

Steve’s eyes are narrowed at Tony over the crowded table as he wordlessly shoves bacon into his mouth. To Bruce’s credit, he doesn’t even look up from his toast. Tony pulls the device back to take a look at it, pressing a couple of buttons and testing it in the air in front of him. It sparks, and Tony’s face lights up as he moves to dig it into Bruce’s ribs again, but suddenly the device is surrounded by red light and floating out of his hands across the room, where it is flung against the reinforced glass of a window. It shatters on impact. Tony pulls a face at Wanda, who smirks and shrugs, skewering a grape on the end of her fork and plopping it in her mouth. Rhodey and Sam laugh.

All-in-all, it’s a normal morning.

Until Fury comes striding in, black duster fanning out behind him. He doesn’t smile a lot, but Bucky thinks the frown he’s wearing is frownier than usual.

“We have a situation,” he says without preamble, glaring, inexplicably, at the pile of toast on the counter, every piece cut diagonally.

Steve is the first out of his seat, quickly followed by Sam, and then T’Challa and Okoye. Everyone else just keeps eating, Tony not even bothering to look up from his plate.

“What’s going on, Director Fury?” Scott asks, wiping the bacon grease from his hand onto his shirt. Hope rolls her eyes at him.

“This directly concerns Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes. You two may want to come with me.”

Bucky’s heart picks up speed, and he stands too, but Steve holds his arm out in front of him. “No, this is my team. Whatever you need to discuss, we can discuss here.”

Fury purses his lips, looking like he wants to argue, but he sighs instead, locking his hands behind his back. “A threat has been made on Sergeant Barnes’s life.”

Bucky blinks.

Steve’s jaw hardens and he moves faster than Bucky can track, suddenly across the room and very close to Fury. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Fury steps around Steve, eyeing Bucky. “Hydra seems to think that threatening Sergeant Barnes will force you to cooperate, Captain.”

“What do they want?” Steve asks, his voice strained and low. He sounds dangerous.

“They want you to turn yourself over to them.”

It’s like being dunked underwater. Shapes are blurry, warped at the edges, sounds garbled and far-away. Bucky realizes quickly that he’s not breathing, either. He forces himself to inhale through his mouth, pinching the bridge of his nose and exhaling forcefully. He takes a few gulps of air like this, clearing the haze, shaking his head to dispel it.

Before Steve can say anything, Bucky shoves his chair out of the way and walks over to him, grabbing his hand. Steve startles, face softening as he turns to Bucky. “You are not going to fucking do that, Steve,” Bucky says, warning clear in his tone.

“Of course not,” Tony scoffs, standing too and wiping his hands with a linen napkin, looking bored. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

“Hydra isn’t going to lay one fucking hand on Bucky—” Steve starts.

“Of course, man,” Sam interrupts. “We would never let that happen.”

“You are _not _handing yourself over to Hydra,” Bucky insists again, squeezing Steve’s hand.

Steve takes a deep breath, letting it out from his nose as he tries to calm himself down. “What’s the plan, then? I assume you have one,” he says to Fury.

“I have some ideas,” Fury offers.

“Let’s hear them.”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Do I ever?”

“We need to discuss the helicarriers too,” Natasha says. “We haven’t debriefed on the information we got in Alabama. Fury and I—”

“I’m worried about Bucky right now,” Steve growls.

“We’re all worried about Bucky,” Natasha says, which is news to Bucky. “But we have to come up with a _plan_, Steve. Pacing around the penthouse and ignoring our intel isn’t going to stop Hydra. We need a team meeting.”

“What would you call this?” Steve snaps, gesturing to everyone gathered around the table.

“A bunch of half-asleep idiots,” she answers coolly, folding her arms in front of her chest. “Let’s take a beat and meet in the conference room. Fury and I can show you the intel and we can figure out what we’re going to do from there.”

“I want to read the threat—or see it, whatever,” Steve says.

“It’s a video message,” Fury explains. “I can show it to you.”

“Debrief in twenty, then.”

The group murmurs a general consent behind them as Steve tugs Bucky onto the elevator and punches the button for his suite.

Bucky’s mind is spinning. He feels nauseated, hot, anxious, like someone’s just stepped on his tail and he’s scrambling to get out from under them but can’t quite gain purchase. Steve is quiet, his shoulders tense. Bucky thinks he can hear his heart beating in the too-still air.

The elevator lurches to a stop and Steve pulls Bucky off. “I need you to stay here,” he says, and Bucky can tell it’s not a request. “Please, just…don’t leave.” He pecks a quick kiss to Bucky’s lips. Bucky nods dumbly and says nothing. “FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Captain Rogers?”

“No one is allowed on this floor without my permission. No one. Not even Tony.” Bucky’s not sure that’s a request FRIDAY’s allowed to grant, so he’s surprised to hear her answer.

“Yes, Captain.”

“And…” he hesitates, glancing at Bucky. “No one but me leaves, either.” 

“Understood, Captain.”

“I’ll be back as soon as this meeting is over,” Steve says to Bucky.

Bucky swallows against his dry throat. “I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere.” He thinks, but doesn’t say, that no one could make him if they tried.

He ends up being wrong about that.

It’s a few hours before Steve returns, looking, if possible, even more browbeaten than before. Bucky had queued up various gag reels from his favorite movies and TV shows on the YouTube app on Steve’s gigantic TV, but even watching Chris Pratt mispronounce “Vladimir Putin” over and over again as Amy Poehler tries not to laugh doesn’t ease Bucky’s anxiety. 

Bucky flicks the TV off as Steve sits on the opposite end of the couch, leaning over so his elbows are pressed to his knees. He doesn’t look at Bucky.

They sit in silence for a few minutes before Bucky can feel the words tumble out of his mouth. “How did it go?”

Steve flinches like he’d forgotten Bucky was there, and he sighs, finally turning toward Bucky. Bucky thinks it could be his imagination, but his eyes look a little glassy.

“We’re leaving for D.C. tomorrow,” Steve starts, running a hand down his face. Over the last few weeks, his beard has grown back, and he scratches his fingers through it absently. 

“Have you figured out how you’re going to do it without getting arrested?” Bucky asks, his throat tightening.

“Hydra’s infiltrated pretty high up. It’s—it’s bad, but Natasha has a plan.”

Bucky knows Steve is telling him as much as he can, so he doesn’t press on the details. “Knowing Natasha, I’m assuming it’s something of a killswitch.”

Steve barks a joyless laugh. “You could say that.”

“How fucked are we?”

“It’s gonna be okay, Buck,” Steve reassures him. It sounds like a lie.

“If it’s gonna be okay, why can’t you look at me?”

Steve does look at Bucky then, dragging his eyes from his own hands, which are curled together between his knees. One corner of his lips quirks up in a mirthless half-smile. He swallows, clears his throat, and Bucky has no idea what’s coming next, but he knows, he _knows _it can’t be good. “Bucky, I—I can’t—_we_ can’t—” Steve huffs out a frustrated sigh, rubbing his palms against his jeans. He’s looking down at his lap again. “Being with me is dangerous.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow at Steve that Steve can’t see, so he scoffs instead, scooting closer and resting one hand on top of Steve’s. “I knew the risks when we started this whole thing,” Bucky says, rubbing his thumb over the back of Steve’s hand. “I knew the minute I opened that supply room door that I was in danger, but I’m glad I did it. I wouldn’t have done any of it differently.”

Steve moves his hand out from under Bucky’s like Bucky had slapped him. “It’s my fault,” he says, standing and turning away. “I should never have agreed to stay at your apartment. It was reckless. I was so selfish to risk your life like that. I’ve been selfish ever since.”

Bucky’s eyebrows knit together, and he stands and walks over to Steve. He places a hand on Steve’s back and can feel the way Steve is breathing too fast, like he’s just that scrawny kid in Brooklyn fighting an asthma attack. Bucky’s heart lurches. “How can you say that? You’re the most selfless person I know.”

“You don’t know me,” Steve growls, rounding on Bucky. “You—you don’t—you don’t know what I’m capable of.”

Bucky feels something in his chest falling. He doesn’t know what this is yet, but he feels hollowed out from it. He feels sick. “I know you’re a good man.”

Steve laughs in that cheerless way again, shaking his head like he can’t believe the conversation he’s having. “This—this is—we’re—” Steve struggles, gesturing between the two of them. “We can’t do this anymore.”

Bucky feels like Steve’s just punched him in the chest, right in the sternum, his heart aching like a bruise has already formed. “What? No,” he whispers, reaching out for Steve’s arm, but Steve takes a step back, his fists clenched at his sides. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am,” Steve says, looking down at the ground again. “This is over.”

Bucky doesn’t care that Steve has put more space between them. He can’t stand it. He steps forward, reaching for Steve’s hand. Steve resists, trying to wrench his hand away, but then Bucky is locking his metal fingers around Steve’s wrist, the plates in his arm whirring and shifting. “Why? Why are you doing this? Was this Fury’s plan?”

“No!” Steve all but yells, though he doesn’t try to break free of Bucky’s grip. “Fury thinks—he said—it doesn’t matter! We can’t be together anymore!”

“Why not?” Bucky growls, tightening his fingers around Steve’s wrist. Steve doesn’t even flinch. He grinds his teeth together, breathing hard, staring at the floor again. Bucky moves his flesh hand to Steve’s chin, tilting it up with some force, and Steve complies, eyes finally meeting Bucky’s again. “Tell me this is what you want, Steve,” Bucky whispers, eyes darting between Steve’s, heart desperately flailing against his ribcage like it’s trying to escape and make its way to Steve in what little space there is between them. “Tell me you don’t want me. Tell me you—” his voice breaks then, because what he’s about to say is not something they’ve ever said before. He clears his throat and soldiers on. “Tell me you don’t love me.”

A look Bucky has never seen flicks across Steve’s features. He’ll think, later, that it looks like despair. There’s a few seconds of silence before Steve says in a watery voice, “I don’t.”

Bucky had been ready for the answer, had known the answer the second he’d threatened Steve to say it, but it doesn’t hurt any less to hear. He drops Steve’s chin, releasing his grip on his wrist at the same time, and stepping back. He can’t stop the gasp that’s escaped his mouth. If he’d thought he’d felt like Steve had punched him before, now he feels like Steve’s fist has gone straight through his skin, driven right through his ribs, dug his fingers into the meat of Bucky’s heart and ripped it, still beating, right out of his chest.

“But I love you,” Bucky says, because he can’t hold it in any longer, because Steve needs to know it, right here at the end of everything. He can’t look Steve in the eyes when he says it, but he sees one of Steve’s hands reach forward like he’s going to touch him, and he takes another step back. He doesn’t want to ease whatever guilt Steve is feeling by letting himself be touched. He’s already empty. He doesn’t have anything left. If Steve touches him, his glass-thin frame will shatter all over these stupid fucking hardwood floors, and God, wouldn’t that be a bitch to clean up? 

Suddenly, he wants to hurt Steve, wants to punch his own way out of this, because if he can’t go down swinging, then what’s the point? “You wanna know something?” Bucky asks, eyes resolutely on the floor and not on Steve’s face. Steve makes a pained noise, the same noise Bucky recognizes as the sound someone makes when he presses on their wound. “I knew,” he says. “I knew you didn’t feel that way about me.” He lets himself lie easier now, voice strengthening. He looks up at Steve, who, inexplicably, looks like he’s about to cry. His cheeks are red and he’s biting his bottom lip, still breathing way too fast, like he’s not sure how to catch his breath. Bucky doesn’t want to care. “Even during…when we were in bed, I knew. I knew, and I still let it happen, because, well, I figured that a few weeks with you was better than never—” he stops himself, because that part of the lie is coming too close to the truth, now. “You didn’t know any better. You didn’t know I was falling for you, but I did. It’s my fault. So don’t beat yourself up over it, or whatever.” He runs a hand through his hair and watches Steve shiver minutely. “I’m not, y’know,” he says, gesturing to Steve, “_special_, or anything, so I get it.”

Steve suddenly looks mad, which Bucky _doesn’t _get, and he’s opening his mouth like he’s going to say something, but Bucky turns and presses the button to call the elevator, which, mercifully, opens. Steve must have given FRIDAY orders to let Bucky leave before he came back to his suite. Bucky hurries onto the elevator, jamming his finger into the button for the first floor and letting his eyes flick back to Steve, who’s standing in his living room, chest heaving as he swipes the back of his sleeve across his cheek. He looks like he’s torn, but Bucky can’t place why. He can’t really place anything at the moment. He only feels numb as he whispers, “Bye, Stevie” when the elevator doors seal shut.

The subway ride back to his place in Brooklyn is a blur. Bucky feels heavy, like gravity is pulling him tighter than usual, and everywhere it drags at him feels like pressing on a bruise. The nausea he’d felt when Steve had left his apartment that first time has come barreling back in waves, roiling and cresting in his stomach as he holds his head in his hands and tries to breathe through his nose. 

If Bucky had been paying any attention, he probably would have noticed the two women tailing him, but as it is, he can barely look up without the world tilting sideways. 

When he finally makes it back to his apartment, he doesn’t even bother taking his jacket off before climbing into bed and pulling the covers over his head.

He wants to avoid any news about Steve Rogers, but it’s impossible to do. His phone vibrates every couple of minutes with the headlines:

BREAKING NEWS: ELEVEN SENATORS WITH CONFIRMED LINKS TO HYDRA TERRORIST ORGANIZATION

HOW HYDRA INFILTRATED CONGRESS

PRESIDENT OBAMA CALLS FOR COMPLETE GOVERNMENT OVERHAUL IN LIGHT OF HYDRA CORRUPTION SCANDAL

HYDRALEAK: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

It seems Natasha’s “killswitch” had been to leak all the intel they’d gathered in Alabama by uploading it directly into everyone’s phones. 

Bucky thinks it’s pretty smart. People will be focused on the government corruption scandal, and without trust in the government, trust in the Avengers would be bolstered. After all, it had been the government that had tried to stifle them, to make them sign away their ability to intervene in Hydra-related activities in the first place. Yeah, it’s pretty damn smart, especially when she’s dropped it the morning of their attack on the helicarriers.

And attack the helicarriers they do. Only hours after the media had started covering the Hydra scandal, every news network suddenly tunes to fire and a column of smoke over the Triskelion, the wreckage of two giant aircrafts aflame and sinking slowly into the Potomac.

Miraculously, there’s no footage of any of the Avengers, though the news outlets are speculating about their involvement, anyway. Bucky thinks he sees a flash of blue and red in the corner of the TV screen, and he’s in the middle of rewinding and playing the footage again, standing as close to the TV as he can, when his door is kicked in.

He knows better than to resist when the barrel of a gun is an inch from his temple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...sorry again.


	10. Getaway Car

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a description of Bucky's kidnapping in this chapter.

The tang of copper, the bite of metal against skin, the sting of sweat in a cut, the dead weight on his left side tugging him down like the very earth is trying to reclaim him. And maybe it is. Maybe he’s dead. It certainly would explain the darkness.

It doesn’t, however, explain the headache.

Bucky is pretty sure you can’t have a headache if you’re dead.

And Bucky, he knows a little something of death. He’s seen death more times than he can count.

He’s seen the gleam of dog tags once the muck has been wiped clean, the letters stamped into metal the only identifying feature left hung around a man’s broken neck. He’s seen the way dust settles into the skin, swirling with endless red, pooling together beneath the cracked façade of a storefront. He’s seen piles of bodies, once human, ripped from their souls like magnets pulled apart and left without a source for all that momentum.

The memories pour into his head, steeping it in hot, sickening flashes that shape the dull ache into sharp throbbing, breathing his lungs into a proper flame, and something starts to pulse to life in his chest.

Alive. He’s _alive_.

The realization crashes through Bucky, and he opens his eyes, flicking the hair out of his face. Some of it is still stuck to his forehead and cheeks with sweat as he picks his head up and looks around the shadowy room.

There’s not much to go by. Above him hangs a fluorescent light, too yellow to drown out the darkness that no windows help abate. The air feels damp against his skin, too warm. There’s a heavy-looking metal door across from where he sits, alone in the room, his wrists handcuffed together behind him. 

There’s something else, too. When he shifts his weight, his arm doesn’t recalibrate. It doesn’t move at all. He wills his metal fingers to curl against his palm, but nothing happens. He moves the back of his flesh hand against the plates of his prosthetic—still there, but useless as he strains against the cuffs. That’s probably intentional. He wonders how anyone managed to come up with something that would disable StarkTech. He finds he doesn’t want to think about it. He thinks instead about how there’s rope cutting into his skin around his abdomen, and, even worse, how his toes are going numb from the pressure of the cables tying his feet together.

He could just sit in this chair until his captors appear, but the panic that has taken root in his chest is starting to truly blossom. “Hello?” he tries, his voice raspy from disuse. He clears his throat. “Hey!” he yells, much louder this time, the ‘ey—ey—ey’ echoing in the empty room. A few beats, and he hears some shuffling outside the door, some minute whispers, which just serves to anger him. “Hey, _dipshits_!”

The door opens and a small man steps in. He’s unremarkable and bug-like, his round glasses too tight against his eyebrows and cheeks, his face full, ears a little too large. He’s bald and wearing a distinctly bored frown along with a white button-down, black slacks, and a red bowtie under a white lab coat so big for him that it almost sweeps the floor. His hands are behind his back as he strides forward.

“Sergeant Barnes, you’re awake,” he says with a German accent. 

Bucky can’t help but roll his eyes. “What tipped you off?”

The man offers a wearied smile. “Can I get you some water?”

“Who the hell are you?”

The man sighs. “I am Dr. Arnim Zola,” he says, loosening his hands from behind his back like he’s going to offer one for Bucky to shake. Instead, he shoves them into the pockets of his lab coat. “You are in a Hydra base.”

“Figures,” Bucky mutters under his breath. “And where is that exactly?”

“Ah, ah, ah!” Zola scolds, smiling again. “I _am _sorry about the arm. We had to...immobilize it,” he says, nodding to Bucky’s left side. Bucky highly doubts that he’s sorry.

“How long have I been out?” Bucky tries instead.

“About two days. I’m afraid our agents hit you rather too hard in the head.”

That explains the headache. “What do you want with me?”

Zola throws him a look that clearly says he should know the answer to that question. “It’s not you we want, Sergeant Barnes.”

Sudden fear for Steve wells up behind his eyes, the pressure setting his headache throbbing again. But he finds he doesn’t have to lie when he remembers the pain of everything Steve had confessed. “Well, if you’ve kidnapped me to get Steve here, you’ve got old intel. We broke up,” Bucky huffs.

“Do you think that will stop him from coming after you?”

Bucky considers this. “If he has to choose between me and the world? He’ll choose the world,” he says, swallowing thickly, because he knows what he would choose if it were the other way around. “He doesn’t love me.”

Zola chuckles. “What makes you think that?”

“He told me,” Bucky grits out. Even thinking about it makes his heart crawl into his throat.

“We will see, Sergeant Barnes,” Zola says. “We will see.” Something in the way he says it has a sort of finality that Bucky can’t understand.

“You’re all idiots,” Bucky laughs. “You really think Captain America won’t sacrifice one man for the safety of the world?”

“Maybe Captain America would,” Zola says, tapping his chin with one pudgy finger. “But Steve Rogers? What will he do?”

And yeah, Bucky gets it, the way some people think of Captain America and Steve Rogers as two different people with two different moral compasses, but really, they’re wrong. _He’d _been wrong. Steve Rogers is a good man, and that’s what makes Captain America a great hero. They’re different, sure, but down in his blood, in his core, in the very soul of the man? They’re one in the same.

“Say you’re right,” Bucky starts. “Say he comes for me. There’s no way you can beat all of the Avengers.”

“Oh, he knows not to bring them, Sergeant Barnes. You see, he knows if he does, we’ll kill you.”

“Why not kill me now and get it over with?” Bucky deadpans.

“If he asks for proof that you’re alive, we need to be able to give it to him.”

“He’s not coming,” Bucky argues, shaking his head. “He’s not going to risk Hydra getting their hands on his blood.” Bucky knows this with some certainty, having spent most of his year with Steve. He knows that there is very little Steve isn’t willing to sacrifice for his country, for his world. Which means Bucky isn’t long for the living, he supposes. He wishes he’d gotten to say goodbye to Becca, his mom, his friends. He even thinks of saying goodbye to Steve, but the still-fresh memory of whispering it to the _snick _of elevator doors shutting between them beats painfully against his ribs and he stamps down on it, forcing it out of his head.

Zola has turned from him, his hands clasped behind his back again as he side-steps the door and exits the room. “We shall see, Sergeant Barnes,” he repeats in his maddeningly calm manner as he closes the door behind him.

It’s hard to sleep when you’re tied to a chair, it turns out. Bucky drifts in and out of consciousness, occasionally waking to someone pouring water into his mouth or trying to feed him something that has the antiseptic odor of hospital food. He does manage to get feeling back into his toes when he goes to the bathroom, which involves a bucket in the back corner and at least five armed guards. So much for dignity.

Some strange things happen, and he’s not sure if it’s all part of the dark dreams he’s been having, but sometimes he wakes up in a different room. He’s in a chair, tilted back, his metal arm secured in a vice while someone closes a contraption over his head and shoves a mouthguard between his teeth. He thinks he’s supposed to remember it, but all he can remember is the prick of needles in his arm, his blood suddenly searing up his spine, and then nothing.

He’s not sure how long he’s there in that Hydra base, barely eating or drinking or sleeping, dreaming of a chair and flickering electricity, when he finally hears the tell-tale crashes and gunshots that signal a fight.

He figures he’s imagining it, though, until he feels a warm hand on his cheek and hears a whispered, scared, “Bucky?” 

He opens his eyes and sees Steve kneeling before him, decked in a suit that’s been ripped in places to reveal what looks like scales, the darkest blue and silver, no red or white to be seen. The harness strapped around his shoulders is supple brown leather that matches his utility belt and the fingerless gloves he has pulled over his hands. He’s forgone the cowl completely, his darkening hair pushed back off his forehead, his beard thick with blood that’s dripped down from a split lip.

Hope and sickening, sinking fear vie in his head for attention, but all his mouth can offer is sarcasm. “This can’t be happening,” Bucky groans, screwing his eyes shut.

He hears the pop of more bullets puncturing the stone wall behind him and opens his eyes again to see Steve ducking behind his shield, deflecting the hail of gunshots away from both of them. When there’s a pause, he throws the shield, hitting two oncoming Hydra agents, who crumple and drop their weapons. Steve picks up a gun, aiming it at the next agent and taking them out before Bucky can blink.

More agents pile into the room, and Steve moves through them in a blur of navy, his shield singing through the air as he twists faster than Bucky can follow. In his groggy, half-awake daydream, it looks like Steve is dancing.

“Drop the gun or I’ll kill him,” a voice yells over the commotion. Things slow down after that.

“_Don’t_,” Steve says, face contorting in pain. Bucky’s never seen him look quite so helpless.

“Drop,” the man repeats, pressing the barrel of his gun to the back of Bucky’s head, “the gun.”

“Okay, okay, don’t hurt him,” Steve says, though he’s made no move to drop his gun.

Bucky knows he should be scared. He knows his heart should be picking up speed, but his body seems to have forgotten fight or flight mode entirely. He just feels…calm.

Well, until Steve does something monumentally stupid.

Instead of dropping the gun, Steve moves to point the gun at his own head. The agents in the room, who all had their guns pointed at Steve, lower them a little, expressions ranging from shocked to anxious to downright frightened. The gun at the back of Bucky’s head twitches.

“How about _you _drop the gun, pal?” Steve counters, a wry smile crossing his face. When the metal stays pressed to Bucky’s skull, Steve takes a step forward. “It’s gonna be hard to experiment on me with a bullet in my brain,” he says like he’s talking about the weather. “I may be hard to kill but I’m willing to bet this will do the job. I don’t see any test tubes around, so good luck getting a viable sample off the floor.”

Something about the way Steve looks with a gun in his hand, aiming the goddamn barrel at his own fucking temple, sets every nerve in Bucky’s brain alight. There’s no conscious thought that goes into what he does next, which is likely a good thing, because he’s not sure he could have done it if he’d thought about it. 

Bucky twists his flesh hand so hard that the chain link holding the lock housings of the handcuffs together snaps. He reaches for the small disc that’s attached to his metal arm just inside the elbow and tears it free, throwing it onto the ground as his arm wakes up, plates shifting as the whole thing whirs to life. He wrenches his legs down, the chair’s footrest breaking free as he slams both feet on the floor, and, without turning around, he picks the chair up by the seat, ramming it into the man whose gun had been pressed to the back of his head. He backs up until the man hits the opposite wall, crashing down with the chair as he drops it behind him, the ropes around his middle falling free. 

Steve only barely acknowledges the feat, a strange look crossing his face for just a second as he turns the gun back on another agent while simultaneously guarding his side with his shield. A man decked in khaki cargo pants and a black shirt, a five o’clock shadow just dusting his strong jaw, sends a punch Bucky’s way, but Bucky blocks it easily with his metal arm, his right hand clenched in a fist and decking the guy in the face. He falls back. A bullet flies toward him, and he reaches out with his metal arm to deflect it easily, grabbing the gun out of the woman’s hand and turning it on her. 

“Bucky!” Steve yells, grabbing Bucky by the leather jacket he’s still wearing and pulling him behind the shield as more bullets rain down. 

“What the fuck are you doing here, Rogers?” Bucky growls, peeking above the shield to fire a few shots.

“Uh, saving your life?” Steve answers, kneeling down and tossing the shield, taking out two more agents at the knees. A metallic hum emits from Steve’s arm as the shield returns to it with a snap.

“Oh, really?” Bucky bites out, fishing a magazine out of a fallen agent’s belt and reloading his gun. “How’s that goin’ for ya?”

“I had them on the ropes,” Steve huffs, bringing his shield around to crack a guy in the face.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Tell me you brought backup.”

Steve grins and winks, reaching to press a finger into his ear, and yells, “_Now_!”

Then the whole building erupts.

Or rather, there’s suddenly an absolutely fucking _giant _guy in a black and red suit, picking up Hydra agents like they’re action figures and tossing them away. He’s broken through the ceiling, rock falling around them as Steve brings the shield to cover his and Bucky’s heads. Bucky hears what sounds like maniacal laughter from the giant guy, like he’s mimicking villains from old black-and-whites, the “muahaha” echoing in the air around them.

“What the _fuck_?” Bucky asks as Steve grabs his hand and heaves him toward the door, which, miraculously, is still intact. 

“Where’s our ride?” Steve says, pressing a finger to his ear again. Right, comms. Bucky doesn’t hear the answer, just follows on Steve’s heels, occasionally leveling Hydra agents with bullets to the head as they run by. The building is unrecognizable as a building now, just broken walls trying not to fall and the occasional spark of dying electronics.

Bucky hears the quinjet before he sees it, the thrum of engines whipping his hair into his face. It lands in the grass in front of them as they run up.

“Lang, let’s go!” Steve yells over his shoulder, and it dawns on Bucky that the giant man is Scott. At Steve’s behest, he shrinks down, invisible for a moment in the wreckage of the Hydra base before he reappears, tugging off his helmet as he jogs up the ramp of the quinjet.

“Hello, boys,” comes Natasha’s familiar drawl as she presses a button above her head and the ramp shuts. “Have fun?”

Scott bends over at the middle, clutching his stomach and panting heavily. “I’m…I’m gonna vomit.”

“That’s what everyone says after their first time,” Natasha quips as the jet takes off.

“Not in my experience,” Bucky deadpans.

Scott straightens up, walks over to a seat, and plops down while Natasha throws a glance over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised and a smirk playing on her lips.

And Steve. Steve runs a hand through his hair, closing the distance between him and Bucky and cupping Bucky’s face with his hands. “Buck,” he whispers, searching him with his eyes. “Are you okay? What—what _was _that back there? How did you…”

Bucky honestly doesn’t know. As the adrenaline seeps out of him, he feels too heavy, rapidly needing support as he backs into the side of the jet and sinks to the ground. Steve follows, getting down on his knees in front of Bucky. The sight alone tears Bucky’s heart in two. “I was so scared,” Steve confesses under his breath, rubbing Bucky’s arms with his hands. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you. I would have come right away, but I was in the hospital—”

“Jesus fuck, of course you were,” Bucky says, closing his eyes and letting his head thump against the metal wall of the jet. “What happened?”

“Took a bullet while destroying those helicarriers,” Steve says quickly, but it isn’t a salve to the punched-out feeling in Bucky’s gut. He opens his eyes as Steve continues, “I’m so sorry, I’m _so _sorry, I didn’t know they’d taken you. When I woke up and they told me, I—”

“You shouldn’t have come,” Bucky interrupts, freeing his arms from Steve’s hot hands. “You fucking reckless idiot, Steve. You shouldn’t have come for me!”

“Buck—”

“No, shut up,” Bucky snaps. “_Why_? Why did you come? You put everyone at risk just by being there! Hydra could have captured you and used you to recreate the serum!”

“It was worth it.”

Of all the idiotic things to say. Bucky throws his hands in the air. “_How _was it worth it? What’s worth losing everything?”

“You,” Steve whispers simply, edging closer. “I’d risk anything for you, Buck. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” He reaches up like he’s going to tuck a stray strand of hair behind Bucky’s ear, but his hand shakes and he rubs his palm against his own face instead.

Bucky’s heart flutters feebly against his breastbone. It doesn’t have much energy left to really take flight. “That—no, that’s wrong,” he manages, curling his knees up to his chin. “You said…you said you didn’t—”

“Bucky—”

“Just stop, Steve.” Bucky can’t take any more of this right now. His heart aches in ways he didn’t know were possible. “I’m—I don’t know why you did it, but I just…I just need you to get away from me right now, okay? Just…leave me alone. I need you to…leave me alone,” he croaks. 

Steve, for once in his life, does what Bucky asks, and backs away.

It doesn’t take long for them to get back to Avengers Tower, and Bucky sleeps the whole way there. He learns that he’s been in Hydra captivity for a week, and though Steve has decided to actually honor Bucky’s request and leave him alone, Steve does insist to Tony that Bucky spend the next few days on the medical floor, so Bucky is forced into a hospital gown and stuck with an IV to give him fluids. He also gets electrodes placed on his chest as the nurses put him on a monitor that displays his heart rate and rhythm, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation. They do so much bloodwork that Bucky’s not sure how he has any blood left to give.

On his second day there, Sam comes to visit him. “Hey man,” Sam says as Bucky opens his eyes slowly to the cruel fluorescent lighting and Sam’s gap-toothed grin. 

“Hey,” Bucky manages, clearing his throat and pushing his hair out of his face. “What are you doing here?”

“What, I can’t come see my good friend Bucky on his sickbed? I’m offended!”

“Sam, we’ve hung out a few times, but I don’t think we qualify as ‘good friends.’”

Sam shrugs, leaning forward a bit. “So we haven’t hung out much. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t worried about you.”

“I appreciate the concern, but what’s this really about?”

Sam sighs. “Steve asked me to come see you.” Bucky rolls his eyes, which Sam seems to have expected. “I know you two are going through a tough time right now—”

A scoff escapes Bucky’s lips, and its tinny echo sounds loudly in the small room. “A ‘_tough time_?’ You mean when he broke my heart when he finally admitted he doesn’t love me? That the ‘tough time’ you’re referring to?”

“Come on, Barnes, don’t be stupid.”

Bucky pulls a face, raising one eyebrow at Sam and crossing his arms in front of his chest, which doesn’t actually convey his message under the stark white blanket he has pulled up to his clavicle. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You can’t actually believe that Steve doesn’t love you,” Sam responds, raising an eyebrow in turn, one edge of his lips pulled into a half-smile like he’s seen something amusing.

Bucky huffs. “He _told _me that he doesn’t. What else am I supposed to believe?”

“You should have seen him when he found out Hydra had you, man,” Sam says, shaking his head. “I’ve seen Steve in the throes of righteous anger. I’ve seen him fling himself at a threat much bigger than him, but I’ve _never _seen him like that, like he would burn the world down to get to you and not care who got in the way.”

Bucky feels like a pressed bruise, aching and sore and tight, his heart thudding against his breastbone angrily. “He was just scared, Sam. I’m sure somewhere in that stupid head of his, he thinks this is his fault. He would have done the same for anyone else.”

“Oh, he definitely thinks it’s his fault, but believe me, it wasn’t that. This was something I’ve never seen before. It was kind of scary, actually.”

Bucky wants to say something, but they’re interrupted by the arrival of Bucky’s doctor. “Mr. Barnes, you’re looking better today,” she says, putting her stethoscope against his chest and listening to his heartbeat. He wonders if she can hear it swelling like it’s being squeezed by a vice, about to pop.

“I’ll get out of the way,” Sam says, standing and putting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Can I tell Steve how you’re doing?”

“If I said no, would that stop you?”

“Figures,” Bucky mutters. “Just tell him I’m okay. And don’t—I can’t see him right now. I really can’t.”

Sam sighs, squeezing Bucky’s shoulder. “All right, man. I’ll tell him.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Bucky says. Sam nods, turns on his heel, and leaves the room.

The doctor eyes the monitor above Bucky’s head. “You’re doing much better than I expected,” she says. “You had some superficial wounds, but they all appear to have healed already. In fact, your labwork is all within normal limits. I don’t see a reason to keep you here any longer. You’re very lucky, Mr. Barnes.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Bucky mumbles. “One lucky guy.”


	11. End Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! 
> 
> There's a brief moment of almost-violence, but it's not done with any malicious intent.

At Tony’s request, Bucky stays in an open suite at Avengers Tower. It’s kind of strange not taking the elevator to the 42nd floor where Steve lives, but Bucky gets used to it. It’s actually pretty easy to avoid Steve altogether, despite the fact that they’re both living in the same place. Bucky never goes to the meals Tony invites him to, and he only ever leaves his suite to visit Sam in his. The two of them have become friends, and Sam has Bucky over for beer and football every Sunday night. The one time Sam had asked if he could invite “a few other people,” Bucky had scowled so hard that Sam backed down immediately. 

But Bucky can’t avoid Steve forever.

He gets antsy being cooped up. He’s taken leave from work in the wake of his capture by Hydra, and Tony expressly forbids him to leave the tower (though Bucky suspects these orders might come from elsewhere, in actuality), so he can’t even get a nice walk in before the weather turns cold. Instead, he heads down to the gym, a massive, sprawling thing with every piece of equipment anyone could ever dream of, an indoor pool, and a track. There’s different rooms, too, including a couple of racquetball courts, a tennis court, and a basketball court. On the far side from the elevators, there’s a space that’s covered in mats, where various Avengers can regularly be found sparring or taking turns with punching bags. Bucky really shouldn’t be surprised to run into Steve there. The serum may let him maintain muscles in places muscles really aren’t needed, but he’s always had that fiery, moral outrage burning inside. It needs an outlet.

Bucky sees him from afar, throwing punch after punch at the bag with both fists clenched tight and wrapped in gauze. He tries not to notice the outline of Steve’s ass in those gray sweatpants or the way sweat is beading at the nape of his neck, where a white t-shirt meets his skin. Natasha is nearby, bent over at an impossible angle in a stretch that has her vibrant, red hair brushing the mats, and she glances up in time to make eye contact with Bucky. If he’d wanted to turn and hide once he’d seen Steve, he figures he’d look like a coward doing it now that Natasha is watching, so he squares his shoulders, takes a deep breath, and walks over to them.

“Heads up,” Natasha mumbles, glancing at Steve. It should be too low for Bucky to hear so far away—hell, it should be too low for anyone to hear over Steve’s increasingly loud blows, even if they were right beside her—but Bucky catches it. Steve doesn’t respond, though, just picks up speed, his body shaking with the weight he’s throwing at the punching bag. “Steve,” Natasha warns, straightening. “You might want to—”

“_What_, Nat?” Steve grits out.

“Bucky,” is all she says before Steve’s body tenses and he throws one last punch. The force of it rips through the canvas and snaps the chain link that the punching bag hangs from, sending the bag halfway across the mat while spraying the floor with sand. The show of strength and the way Steve’s muscles had tensed when Natasha had said Bucky’s name sends Bucky’s heart thrashing against his sternum, the familiar ache surging back through him with renewed vigor. Natasha raises her eyebrows at Steve, and Bucky thinks this is probably the most surprised she’s ever looked.

By the time Steve turns around, Bucky is at the edge of the mat, running his flesh hand over the top of his head to check for bumps from the hasty ponytail he’s sporting. Steve’s eyes go immediately to the motion, and Bucky watches his chest heave as the adrenaline courses through him. He notices that no one has bothered to tell Steve he could buy his shirts two sizes bigger, because of course they haven’t. Why would they? 

Steve swipes a gauze-covered hand through his own hair, sweat slicking it back off his forehead as he shifts his weight from his right foot to his left and glances back down at the ground. Bucky clears his throat. “Hey,” he says, biting his lip and mentally berating himself for the lame opening.

“James,” Natasha says with a dip of her head as she straightens up. Her eyes move from Bucky to Steve and back slowly. Bucky has never seen her hesitate before, but she seems to be waiting for Steve to say something.

“Hi,” Steve says, voice like crunched-up gravel. He’s still not meeting Bucky’s eye, instead glancing at Natasha and nodding almost imperceptibly. He tugs at the gauze on his hand with his teeth and starts to unravel it.

“Well, look at the time,” she says coolly, not even bothering to glance at the all-black Starkwatch she has strapped around her thin wrist. She picks up a pair of black heels from the edge of the mat and hooks them over her fingers, bringing them up to her shoulder and resting them against her drying skin. “You boys play nice, all right?”

“Natasha,” Steve says like he’s scolding her, but he can’t keep the slight smile off his face. She returns it, her whole face lighter with it, and Bucky feels suddenly jealous of the easy banter they share, the way they can say so little but imply so much, knowing the other understands what they’re not saying. Natasha winks and turns on her socked heel, her movements lithe as she saunters away.

Bucky and Steve watch her go, Bucky swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth and trying to urge his heart to stop struggling to claw its way out of his chest. As it is, he’s pretty sure Steve can hear it pounding away.

“How ya been, Buck?” Steve asks, turning toward Bucky, finally meeting his eye.

Bucky really isn’t sure how to answer that question. “Not bad, for the end of the world,” he says, unable to resist a little jab at Steve, hoping he understands that that’s pretty much what his life has felt like since the day Steve told him he doesn’t love him.

Steve’s face falls a little. “I’m sorry for dragging you into all of this. If I’d have known—”

Whatever comes next, Bucky doesn’t want to hear it. “What, you wouldn’t have done it?” he challenges, that sick feeling swooping through him, making him seethe with it. “You wouldn’t have come with me back to my apartment that day at the hospital?”

Steve takes a deep breath and pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.”

“It always ends in a fight,” Bucky counters, anger turning his stomach to acid. “Isn’t that how this works? You don’t back down, right? Why should this be any different?”

Steve narrows his eyes, shakes his head, starts to say something, stops. He’s frustrated. “This is my life!” he finally yells. “Look around. It’s not _safe _for you. It’s not safe for anyone.”

“How about you let people make their own decisions for once, huh, Steve? You’re so eager to sacrifice yourself for the world, but you won’t let anyone sacrifice anything for _you_!”

“I put people in danger, remember? That’s what I do. I won’t do it to you,” Steve says, clenching his fists at his sides.

“It’s a little late for that,” Bucky fires back, taking a step toward Steve. He wants nothing more than to shove him, get some of his anger out instead of letting it eat away at all of his resolve. “Maybe you should have decided that _before _you made me fall in love with you and then realized you don’t love me back. Could have saved me an entire kidnapping by Hydra by just admitting you didn’t love me months ago.”

Bucky hears the breath leave Steve’s lungs, sees the way his already pale skin empties of blood. He stumbles forward, right into Bucky’s space, and Bucky has never seen him like this before—fragile. Steve lifts a hand like he’s going to reach for Bucky, but his hand shakes and he stops himself, letting it fall to his side. He inhales slowly, eyes locked with Bucky’s, darting back and forth. “Bucky, you—you can’t tell me you believed that.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to make of it at all, the words not translating in his head. He furrows his brow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You can’t possibly believe that I didn’t love you, that I don’t still…” Steve says, voice hoarse, and he seems unable to stop himself this time as he brings a hand to rest lightly on Bucky’s metal bicep, the plates in the arm shifting with the weight. “You can’t possibly believe that I could _ever _stop loving you.”

Bucky feels staticky and slow. “But…you said…”

“Oh, Buck,” Steve’s voice breaks, and he moves his other hand to the side of Bucky’s neck, his fingertips in the hair at Bucky’s nape. Bucky can feel Steve’s breath against his skin, smell the familiar scent of him, the sugary warmth making his heart ache. “Pretending not to love you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

The aching in his chest turns urgent and heavy when Steve dips his head toward him, and his eyes fall closed as Steve pulls his face gently forward and presses his soft lips against his own. Bucky lets his hands find Steve, his metal one pressing into the middle of Steve’s back and the other cupping his jaw, Steve’s blonde beard prickling the flesh of Bucky’s fingers as their lips brush together again and again in soft, tentative kisses. When they break apart, Bucky presses his forehead to Steve’s.

“Is this real?” Bucky rasps, moving his flesh hand to Steve’s hair and running his fingers through it. It reminds him of a dream that keeps waking him.

Steve grabs Bucky’s wrist, pulling his hand out of his hair and presses a gentle kiss to his palm. “I love you, Bucky,” he whispers against the soft skin there. “If there are past lives, if there are other universes, I love you there too. There’s nowhere I don’t love you.”

It feels like someone’s quickly filling in the spaces in Bucky’s heart that had been carved out that day in Steve’s suite. He feels like someone who could be whole again, maybe. But just as fast as the relief swoops in, anger shoves it aside. Bucky steps back, breaking the spell, and Steve looks a little dazed to be met with space between them. “This doesn’t change anything, does it?” Bucky whispers, ragged with hope.

Steve swallows hard, shaking his blonde head a little. “You’re not safe here, Bucky. You’re not safe with me.”

“Bullshit, Steve,” Bucky responds. “I don’t know what they did to me back there, Hydra, but something is different. I’m…stronger.”

Steve looks unsure. “Buck…”

“No, listen to me! I can take care of myself. I’m different. I don’t need you to protect me, and I certainly don’t need you to fucking break my heart to do it.”

Steve studies him, eyes narrowed a bit, and Bucky can practically see the thoughts forming in Steve’s head. He doesn’t anticipate what Steve is about to do. In fact, had someone tried to warn him, he would have laughed in their face, because it’s not something he could imagine Steve ever doing, not to him. He doesn’t even have time to think it all through when Steve rears back, faster than Bucky’s eyes should have been able to see, and swings at Bucky’s face. Just like the calm that had settled over him at the Hydra base, just like when he had broken free from the handcuffs without conscious thought, Bucky raises his metal arm in front of him to block the blow, and Steve’s fist catches him in the forearm. The sensation is a little uncomfortable, the force behind the punch sending his pressure sensors haywire, but to Tony Stark’s credit, it definitely doesn’t hurt. Steve doesn’t look surprised when he inspects his hand and sees that the skin has broken open at the knuckles. Bucky feels shock on his own face, though, and reaches out to grab Steve’s bleeding hand in his.

“Steve, what the _fuck_?”

Steve pulls his hand gently from between Bucky’s, and he’s smiling. “It’ll heal, Buck.”

“You just tried to punch me in the face!”

“Not really,” Steve says, his smile growing. 

“You—_what_—”

“No offense, Buck, but if I’d wanted to punch you, I would have punched you.”

“You cocky son of a bitch—”

“The point is,” Steve says, interrupting him again, “I think you’re right. You _are _stronger, and faster. I told you Hydra was working on replicating the serum Erskine used on me. I think they may have tested it on you.”

Bucky feels sick, and he looks down at his own hands, Steve’s words ringing in his ears. “I’m—no, Steve, that can’t be—”

“You said yourself that you’re stronger. You just blocked a punch that the old Bucky, as much as I love him, would never have been able to see coming.”

Fear starts to bubble at the forefront of Bucky’s mind. “If they recreated the serum—”

“We destroyed everything in that Hydra base, and Natasha has all of their intel. Whatever Dr. Zola was working on never made it out of there, and Zola is dead. Fury made sure of that when he went back there to assess the damage. There’s no more serum.”

Bucky still can’t process it, not really, not after everything. “Let me get this straight. I have some sort of supersoldier serum, like yours, and you…you lied to me to protect me.”

Steve’s face flickers, pain evident in the lines of his forehead as he takes a step toward Bucky again. “Did you forget the part where I said I love you?”

Bucky’s heart jumps, practically forcing its way into his throat again. “I didn’t miss that, no,” he manages, rubbing at the back of his neck, though he aches to get his fingers in the hair at Steve’s temple.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, stepping closer again, pressing his forehead to Bucky’s and putting both of his hands on Bucky’s cheeks. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Buck. I just didn’t know how else to get you to leave. You’re too damn stubborn to do it if I say it’s for your own good.” Bucky huffs a laugh, letting his hands find Steve and move up his sides, feeling the sweat underneath his t-shirt. “Can you forgive me?”

It’s Bucky’s turn to swallow hard, his chest too tight. “I want to,” he whispers, his lips just a breath away from Steve’s. “But you can’t send me away again, Steve. You can’t—you can’t make me leave. I can’t take it.”

“It wasn’t easy for me either,” Steve says, tugging Bucky’s ponytail holder from his hair and letting his hair fall down around his face, winding his fingers in it. “I was going to try,” he confesses, “to get you to leave again, but you’re so much stronger now, and God, Buck, you’re the only one of us who is. I’m not strong in the same way you are. I won’t make you leave again. I can’t.”

“Promise me,” Bucky says.

“Okay,” Steve manages, pressing his lips to Bucky’s again. “Okay, Buck, I promise. I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

“I love you too, you know,” Bucky says between kisses. Steve laughs quietly in Bucky’s ear before trailing kisses down his neck, and Bucky can feel Steve smiling into his skin.

“Oh God,” Bucky hears a familiar voice groan. Just like that, he’s tugged out of his warm little Steve bubble, and he whips his head around to see Sam, in black sweats and a bright purple compression shirt, with his face buried in his hands. “Guess you two’ve made up, then?” he says, voice muffled by his palms.

Steve laughs, stepping away from Bucky, and Bucky’s heart gives a hurt little lurch, but Steve doesn’t go far. He lets his fingers trail down Bucky’s forearm until he winds them between Bucky’s. “You can open your eyes, Sam.”

“Nah, nope, I don’t believe you, man,” Sam says, still hiding his face. “Honestly, I’ve seen enough of the two of you making out to last me for the rest of my life.”

Bucky laughs too, and he can’t help but tug Steve in just a little bit and brush a kiss onto his shoulder. “You’re going to have a hard time working out with your eyes closed,” Bucky teases.

Sam spins around, still covering his face with his hands, and tries to make his way toward the exit. “I don’t trust y’all,” he calls over his shoulder, putting both arms out and taking some exaggerated steps forward, eyes squeezed closed.

“Oh, this might actually be a fun game,” Tony says as he rounds the corner, a white towel flung over his shoulder. “On your left, Wilson.” Sam takes a giant step to his right, arms still outstretched, avoiding the imaginary obstacle Tony had warned him about. “Now take two steps forward and then one step to your left, and then move diagonally to the right—”

“Don’t listen to him, Sam,” Natasha says, appearing as if out of thin air on Steve’s left. Bucky jumps, but Steve just smiles warmly down at her. “He’s guiding you right into a leg curl.”

“And you’re about to run into the bench press,” Bruce adds as he walks up, hands on his hips.

“Fewer comments from the peanut gallery, more actually helpful directions,” Sam requests, stopping his slow and extravagant movements.

“Remind me why your eyes are closed?” Bruce says, taking his glasses off to wipe them on his t-shirt.

“So I don’t have to watch Steve and Bucky make out.”

“Oh! That’s happening again? Who won that bet?” Tony asks, winking at Bucky, who narrows his eyes in return. “I know I put November—"

“Sir, Ms. Romanov picked today’s date,” FRIDAY says overhead.

Tony raises an eyebrow and glares at Natasha, who lifts one shoulder in a shrug and flashes a rare grin. “No fucking way,” Tony says. “FRIDAY, you’ve been hacked.”

“I assure you, sir—”

“The integrity of the bet has been compromised—”

“Do you really think I could hack FRIDAY, Tony?”

“Honestly, I don’t know whose ego to stroke, here,” Steve whispers in Bucky’s ear. Bucky huffs a laugh and shakes his head.

“That is the only way you could’ve possibly picked today’s date!”

“Actually, the probability of her picking today’s date is one in—” Bruce interrupts, and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Thank you, Doctor, but sometimes here on Earth we use _hyperbole_.”

“Still standing here, you know!” Sam exclaims, reaching out his arms again.

Bucky looks around at the small group of Avengers gathered around him and glances back up at Steve, who’s grinning and offering Sam directions. Bucky’s still not sure he believes the incredible turn his life has taken since he met Steve Rogers, but he knows, without a doubt, that it’s the best thing that ever happened to him. Steve catches Bucky looking at him and dips his head to plant a soft kiss on Bucky’s lips. “I love you, Buck,” he whispers between them as their friends continue to bicker. “You were right, I never should have lied to you. I won’t do it again. You belong here, with me. With us.”

“I love you too, Steve, but I don’t know…I’m not a hero.”

Steve turns to Bucky and puts his hand on Bucky’s cheek, stroking his fingers through the hair at his temple. “You’re a nurse, Buck. You were a hero long before Hydra injected you with that serum.”

“We still don’t know if that’s what happened,” Bucky points out.

Steve smiles, kisses Bucky’s forehead, and glances at Tony, Natasha, Sam, and Bruce. “I think we’ll figure it out.”

Bucky kisses Steve hard, pressing his hand into Steve’s hair. “So, what do you want to do now?”

“I can think of a few things,” Steve says, grinning and biting down softly on Bucky’s lower lip. Bucky makes a whining noise in the back of his throat, his knees threatening to give out beneath him. “C’mon, Buck.” Steve tugs at his hand, urging him toward the elevator. “My floor or yours?”

“Oh, uh…” Bucky hesitates. He finds he doesn’t like that they have two different floors. When Steve speaks, he wonders again if he can read his mind.

“It’s just semantics, sweetheart,” Steve says, pulling Bucky in for another kiss. “Move in with me.”

Bucky’s heart somersaults in his chest, but the word is out before he even considers it. “Okay.”

Steve grins, squeezing Bucky’s hand. “I love you.”

Bucky thinks of Steve’s words earlier, of what he’d promised. He feels warm all over, and he can’t help but smile as the elevator dings open in front of them. He turns to Steve and cups his face with both hands. “I love you too, Stevie,” he whispers, pressing a soft kiss to Steve’s lips. “And I’m with you. ‘Til the end of the line.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. I hope you loved it. This really was months and months of work and tears and procrastination, but I stuck with it for you...and these dear boys. 
> 
> Thank you again to the lovely winter_sergeant, my artist, and fancyh, my beta, without whom this would be much less of a masterpiece. <3


End file.
